Mar 8, 2010
Sesame Workshop Teams with AmeriChoice for Healthy Habits
Sesame Workshop and AmeriChoice, the UnitedHealth Group company that provides health benefits for state and public programs, are partnering to develop a bilingual education outreach program aimed at helping low-income families make food choices that are affordable, nutritional, and set the foundation for lifelong healthy habits. AmeriChoice will brand the partnership UnitedHealthcare.
The initiative will offer support and creative resources for families with children between the ages of 2 and 5 to cope with “food insecurity,” defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as “households where there is a lack of access to enough food to fully meet basic needs at all times due to lack of financial resources.” There is growing concern that food insecurity could contribute to childhood obesity rates, which over the past three decades have tripled to nearly one in three children in America being overweight or obese.
Program outreach will include bilingual (English and Spanish) Healthy Habits kits with an original DVD starring the Sesame Street Muppets and a documentary of families along with their children using a variety of strategies for maintaining Healthy Habits for Life, despite limited financial resources.
The kits will also include child-friendly recipes, activity cards, and a parent/caregiver guide with information about healthful eating and ways to make nutritional and economical food choices for the entire family. In addition, AmeriChoice will send Healthy Habits for Life messages and information to low-income and vulnerable populations in public sector health care programs via the web, physician mailings, and member mailings and newsletters that will go to 3 million members.
“With the Healthy Habits for Life partnership, AmeriChoice and Sesame Workshop have a tremendous opportunity to help parents and caregivers gain a greater understanding of the relationship between healthful food habits and children’s healthy growth,” said Rick Jelinek, chief executive officer of AmeriChoice. “We are committed to supporting low-income parents and their children with quality health care every day, and we are pleased to partner with Sesame Workshop to make a positive difference in children’s well-being and quality of life.”
Program development will begin this week with the first meeting of an advisory board consisting of leading nutrition and child-development experts who will inform and guide Sesame Workshop on all aspects of the program design.
more people are becoming obese these days because of too much junk food and too much sugar in snacks and fast foods. *