Press Releases: Hawaii
May 30, 2012
Kaiser Permanente Hawaii Partners with Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center to Launch ‘Bodyworks’
Program designed to help improve family eating and activity habits
HONOLULU — Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, in partnership with Kaiser Permanente Hawaii, is launching BodyWorks, a free program for parents and caregivers of adolescent boys and girls aimed at improving family eating and activity habits. Developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health, BodyWorks focuses on teaching adults how to help adolescents, ages 9 to 13, make small, specific behavior changes to prevent complications from obesity and to have a healthy lifestyle. Kaiser Permanente provides support for Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center staff training and program instructors.
The BodyWorks program focuses on parents as role models and provides them with the tools and support they need to create healthy lifestyles for their children. This free program consists of five sessions, with each one including interactive and fun activities. Parents who enroll in the program will receive a toolkit as a guide for creating an overall healthy lifestyle and are asked to attend group meetings to help maintain behaviorial changes. The toolkit includes a video on healthy shopping and cooking strategies, recipes, food and fitness journals, a weekly meal planner and other support material.
“The key to a healthy family is the parent, who acts as the family nutrition gatekeeper. If parents decide to increase their knowledge of nutrition, their attitudes change and subsequent behavior changes for the child are more likely,” says BodyWorks trainer Leticia Nagata, a clinical nutritionist with Kaiser Permanente Hawaii.
Based on research, adolescents express a desire to have their parents be stronger role models for fitness. They want their parents to set boundaries for unhealthy eating habits and sedentary activities, and to engage the entire family in increasing physical activity.
“We believe that healthy adolescents become healthy adults,” says Jonelle Rowe, MD, adolescent health consultant with the Office on Women’s Health. “BodyWorks teaches parents to be role models for their children and encourages them to establish better eating and activity habits for their families.”
BodyWorks is a five-part program offered free to parents and caregivers from June 21–July 19, 2012 at Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center’s Fitness Center and Dining Pavilion from 4 to 5:45 p.m. For more information, visit: www.womenshealth.gov/BodyWorks/parentsfamilies/ or call 808-697-3526 and leave a message, or email Laurel Shonerd at lshonerd@wcchc.com.
About Kaiser Permanente Hawaii
Kaiser Permanente Hawaii has provided total health to the people of Hawaii for more than 50 years, with physicians who are members of the Hawaii Permanente Medical Group, the largest multi-specialty physician group practice in the state of Hawaii. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. Visit kp.org for additional information, become a fan of good health at facebook.com/KPHawaii or follow @KPHawaii on Twitter.
