HOSPITAL PROGRAMS HELP MAKE CHILDREN HEALTHY

Sheila Bevell, a kindergarten student at May Greene Elementary, looked over some of the information handed out.

Christy Adams showed the proper way to wear a bicycle helmet to the class.

A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey says as many as one in five children between the ages of 6 and 17 are overweight.

Today, it seems children would rather sit inside and watch TV or play video games. There are so many families in which both parents have careers outside the home that there is less family time devoted to physical activities.

After several teachers and school nurses asked for a program on health and nutrition, St. Francis Medical Center created Healthy Living, a community outreach program for children. The program teaches healthy eating habits and exercise, targeting those in kindergarten through second grade.

"We really had a lot of requests for education in the school systems," says Amy Brentlinger, pediatrics care coordinator. "This is the response we came up with."

The program was started at the beginning of the school year. Christy Adams, nurse and pediatric outreach coordinator, does most of the presentations at school, which usually last about 30 to 45 minutes.

She first reads a story to the class on the importance of exercise and healthy living/eating. "Timmy's New Suit" tells the story of how Timmy grew out of his suit because he wasn't eating right and didn't get enough exercise.

Afterwards, the class all works together on a "play" sheet called "Energize With Exercise," which contains various activities for the children to reinforce what they were read in class. The exercises ask questions such as what the most important meal of the day is, to which one student responded "steak."

Each child then receives a folder displaying colorful animals, with gifts inside: a coloring book, crayons, a bike safety pamphlet and safety stickers. A note in the folder is for the parents, giving an overview of what the child learned in class.

Leasa Stone, a nurse with the pediatrics department, designs most of the material for the program and assists with the presentations in class, as does Jennifer Meyer, a student doing her clinical at St. Francis.

In addition to "Healthy Living," several other programs have been developed to deal with special situations that occur infrequently in a child's life, ones that children may have trouble dealing with. The majority of these requests are for self-esteem. Other special programs cover sexual abuse, hyperactivity, and death and dying.

"If a child has a sibling die, then we go into that particular classroom and do that program," Adams says. "It helps kids deal with the actual loss and the whys."

In one instance, a first- and third-grader had to deal with the loss of an 18-month-old sibling.

"Children think strange things when people die," she says. They think things like "maybe the baby was bad."

There are also programs on contagious or chronic illnesses such as diabetes. The class not only alleviates the fears of the suffering child, but also helps the class to deal with the situation.

"If you have a second-grader and the class is not understanding why little Charlie is sick and why he's had to miss so much school and that kind of thing," says Brentlinger.

Response to the programs has been positive.

"We've had a tremendous response. It's unbelievable," says Brentlinger. "We are so overwhelmed, there's not enough of us to go out and do it."

The initial schedule set up by the pediatrics department was to visit 40 schools in the medical service area by the end of the school year. So far, they have visited 13 schools, but have been flooded with requests for additional programs.

Southeast Missouri Hospital also has several pediatric community programs that it has provided for a number of years. It has programs in health and fitness such as Kids Bee Fit, which includes Romp 'N Stomp for ages 2 to 5 and KidzStep for those 6 to 12.

Mr. Yuk is a popular program for 3- to 6-year-olds that teaches children what poison is and how to stay away from it.

C.O.O.L. Company (Children Overcoming Outstanding Loss) is for youngsters 5 to 16 and offers a support group for children during these tough times in their lives.

Melinda's Magical Medicine Show is for children who are scheduled to have surgical procedures at Southeast. Through a puppet show, children are introduced to the equipment and medical supplies they see before and after surgery.

In addition, they have special classes on nutrition, childhood asthma, self-esteem and dealing with new siblings.