Thursday, January 8, 2009 9:52 PM CST
Meeting on children's health issues planned for Monday
By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer
dfopay@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — There are ways that the community can try to help with obesity and other children’s health issues, but interested people first need a starting point.
That’s the idea behind a meeting scheduled Monday for discussion and planning for what might be done to help children become healthy and stay healthy. Organizers say anyone who’s interested can attend.
“We want to get everybody together and see what issues we have,” said Jeni Huckstep, educational services coordinator at WEIU-TV, which is organizing the meeting along with the Coles County Public Health Department.
The meeting is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Monday at the health department, 825 18th St., Charleston. Advance registration isn’t required, but Huckstep said anyone with questions can call her at 581-7912.
Huckstep said the station and the health department want to bring back a group called the Healthy Child Task Force, which has been inactive for some time. She said the meeting is open to anyone, but people in the education and health fields and related areas might be interested.
The meeting will look at “who’s there and what resources we have,” Huckstep said, and should lead to discussion on how to help children develop health habits early on.
Misti Farler, public health educator at the health department, said parents, other members of families with children and people “with concerns in general” would be interested in attending the meeting.
The health department wants to address childhood obesity because it’s becoming “prevalent,” Farler also said, and that’s one of the long-range goals she’d like to see come from the effort.
“I’d like to make people aware that there are choices,” she said. “You just have to make that decision.”
WEIU-TV received a grant from the Lumpkin Family Foundation in Mattoon to develop a program called “Healthy Habits for Life” and whatever results from Monday’s meeting should help with that effort, Huckstep said.
The program addresses nutrition as well as other child health issues such as physical activity, hygiene and rest and relaxation, she said.
Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.
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