C.A.T.C.H. – Coordinated Approach to Child Health
C.A.T.C.H. stands for a Coordinated Approach to Child Health. The program unites multiple players in a child’s life to create a community of health, including the child’s classroom teacher, PE teacher, school nurse, and parents. C.A.T.C.H. is proven to prevent childhood obesity. Our community health programs aim to impact the messaging a child receives in physical education, the lunchroom, the classroom, and at home, to influence a child’s choices not only in school, but lifelong.
Two of the most important ways that CATCH creates behavior change are by enabling children to identify healthy foods, and by increasing the amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) children engage in each day. Our health education curriculum uses terminology for identifying healthful foods–GO, SLOW and WHOA–a simple means of labeling food’s nutritional content.
C.A.T.C.H. is designed and proven to coordinate healthy messages across all areas of a child’s life. The program is effective and fun, incorporating many non-elimination style games that encourage children to get up and move and keep on moving. C.A.T.C.H. Activity Boxes and PE Trainings arm teachers with the tools needed to increase students’ MVPA, and our curriculum provides teachers with simple suggestions of how to incorporate physical activity into their lessons.
A big thank you to Tari Phares for introducing this program to our school. Check out the C.A.T.C.H. website for more information.
