5-2-1-0

Life used to be a lot simpler. Kids played outside without encouragement, and “screen time” wasn’t even a phrase. But in the 21^st century, raising, teaching or caring for kids is more complicated. It can be difficult to know what’s best for kids’ health or what limits to set for them. Fortunately, the Let's Go! 5-2-1-0 program provides an easy-to-remember set of guidelines.

United Way of Central Iowa is proud to implement our own local awareness campaign and program initiatives for Let's Go! 5-2-1-0, a nationally recognized childhood-obesity prevention program. The main goal of the program is to influence policy and environmental change so that kids can live healthy lives. Here’s what the numbers stand for:

Partnering with Visiting Nurse Services of Iowa, United Way has implemented the 5-2-1-0 program in eight child care and after-school programs and four elementary schools, with a focus on low-income neighborhoods. The 5-2-1-0 coordinator helps each school or child care provider complete an assessment of their current policies and practices, then collaborates on a plan that best matches the needs of the staff, kids and parents.

Initiatives include:

• Offering healthier options in vending machines
• Adding indoor play equipment
• Increasing kids’ access to water
• Providing blenders for healthy smoothies
• Changing birthday celebrations to reduce sugar intake
• Providing nutrition education to staff to help them act as healthy role models
• Hosting family nights with fun, interactive ways to learn more about 5-2-1-0
• Promoting breast feeding for mothers

United Way of Central Iowa is planning to expand 5-2-1-0 to more programs and schools and to offer educational resources to parents when they visit pediatricians’ offices.

To this end, Prairie Meadows has awarded United Way of Central Iowa a $15,000 grant to continue the 5-2-1-0 work.

Starting in January 2016, the Wellmark Foundation also provided a two-year match grant for the elementary school component of the program. The Health and Education Cabinets of United Way of Central Iowa furnish the remainder of the funding for the 5-2-1-0 program.

We appreciate Prairie Meadows’ and Wellmark's commitment to improving the health of kids in our community. These grants will help is to achieve our community impact health goal for 2020: to increase central Iowa’s Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index score to 64.5.

For resources to share with your family, child care provider or school, visit letsgo.org.