Obesity in children is rapidly becoming a national crisis in the United States.  As reported by the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Surgeon General:

"15% of American youth ages 6-19 are now overweight."  and "the prevalence of overweight adolescents ages 12-19 has nearly tripled in the past two decades."

On January 2, 2007, the Robert G. O'Donnell Middle School and Costa Fruit & Produce will launch a new program, imove.  Imove is a comprehensive food service program focused on encouraging children to make healthy nutritional choices through education and fun.

There are many ways to prevent child obesity.  Imove focuses on nutritional education and behavior modification.  Our program offers incentives to students for making better nutritional choices while continually reinforcing the importance of choosing a healthy lifestyle.

Here is how imove works:

• Healthy selections are labeled with an imove sticker
  
• For every imove meal or snack a child purchases, they receive a raffle ticket
  
• The child then puts their name and grade on the raffle ticket and places it in the imove box
  
• Drawings are held throughout the school year during lunch.  The heathier children eat, the more chances that they have to win!

View the slide presentation prepared by Costa Foods for further information. (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view)