Overton Elementary School will host a health fair for parents of Overton students from 5-7 p.m. Tuesday.
The event, Have a Heart Family Field Day, will address proper eating habits and childhood obesity. It is sponsored by a grant from Rowan Regional Medical Center and the Kate B. Reynolds Foundation.
“I deal with the problem of obesity every day,” said Dr. Jennifer Hudson, a pediatrician with Salisbury Pediatric Associates and one of the organizers of the event along with Leah Ann Honeycutt, president of the Overton PTA. “Unfortunately, right here in Rowan County, children are continuing to gain weight at an alarming pace. The solution is parents making the right food choices for their children.”
The fair will have stations that exhibit proper nutrition and other healthy lifestyle choices. The stations are patterned after guidelines from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem.
The guidelines are eat five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, eat four meals together each week as a family, eat three meals per day (don’t skip meals), watch two hours or less of television per day (including video games), do one hour per day of activity and have zero sugary drinks per day.
“We will present fitness and nutrition in a family-friendly way and give parents some tools to encourage healthy habits,” said Honeycutt. Our goal is for families to spend time together having fun, while learning about a more healthy lifestyle. We are challenging other schools in Rowan County to copy our event and address this problem as well.”