Transforming Young Lives: The Power of Nutrition and Fitness at Summer Camp

Discover how our summer camp transformed lives and fostered healthy habits in young students! Join me, Leonila Campos, your registered dietitian host, as I recount the enriching journey of the "Fuel Up and Be Fit" summer camp with Fresno Unified School District. This episode of the Simple Nutrition Insights Podcast dives into the heart of our program, highlighting the powerful combination of nutrition education, fitness, and hands-on cooking activities. You’ll hear stories of our growth and the palpable excitement of students as they learn about the five food groups, hydration, and the joys of preparing their own meals.

Listen to how the collaboration with my sister Maria, a personal trainer, brought a holistic approach to the camp, ensuring kids stayed active and engaged. From the foundational aspects of nutrition to integrating fun fitness routines and cooking lessons, this episode is a heartwarming look at how we can make impactful changes in children’s lives. Be inspired by the dedication of teachers who go above and beyond, and learn how we created an all-in-one camp that not only educates but also empowers students to lead healthier lives. Don't miss out on this uplifting discussion about the importance of fostering lifelong healthy habits in our youth.

Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to this podcast and share with a friend. If you would like to know more about my services, please message at fueledbyleo@gmail.com

My YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0SqBP44jMNYSzlcJjOKJdg

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode in the Simple Nutrition Insights Podcast. I am your host, leonila Campos, registered dietitian, and today I want to tell you all about my last summer camp with Fresno Unified School District, and the name of our camp was to fuel up and be fit, and it's just so amazing to see how much we've grown as a company as part of Fresno Unified enrichment programs, summer school programs, and just how much students grow in just either a week or three weeks, and so I really wanted to come, you know by today and like really share these lessons and while we learn, and like, um, yeah, all about the summer camp. So we started doing the summer camp, um again, with Fresno Unified. This is a part of Fresno Unified school district, so only students that go to Fresno Unified are able to join the summer camps, and I remember when we first got the opportunity to partner with them as a vendor, which was really really exciting, right, I've done nutrition education for schools, you know, from grade first, kindergarten, all the way to high school, adult school, and so I've not what's the word? I've always been into nutrition education, right, and it's just so amazing to see how much students, how much kids, really learn things, obviously, that they don't know. They might think they know Because, even though nutrition not specifically nutrition education, but, for example, the five food groups right, there is a campaign about the MyPlate and I see that in the schools usually it's just like a poster right in the cafeteria.

Speaker 1: 2:22

Some, some teachers, do an amazing job at maybe adding some of those components into their lesson plans and it teaches them about nutrition, right, I know a an amazing teacher that we worked together when I was doing nutrition education for the community Shout out to Miss Cades, julie Cades and we work for the University of California Cooperative Extension and we talked all about nutrition. We would go into the classrooms and we would teach a lesson, a lesson about something specific, about hydration or fruits and vegetables, and so we really love that. And in her classroom now she's a teacher, a middle school teacher she does so many amazing things and including nutrition right, she shows students, even though they have this specific lesson plan right, that they have to follow and standards and a core curriculum. She goes above and beyond and she teaches about nutrition. So it's so amazing to see that, but of course, not all teachers are able to do that, right, there's time crunch and so many things that kids have to learn, so many things to focus on, right. And so, when we had this opportunity to partner with Fresno Unified to be able to bring in our camp right. And so, when we had this opportunity to partner with Fresno Unified to be able to bring in our camp right, I thought about okay, what? Obviously nutrition is something that I want to talk about because, as a registered dietitian, right, and the patterns I'm seeing over the years, right, that nutrition is something that they don't learn, but it's something that we need throughout our stages of life. And so I said, okay, of course nutrition, but what else can we add? So it is like an all-in-one camp per se that it teaches students, right, different skills. And so, as I talked to my sister, maria, who's a personal trainer, she said how about if we add some kind of fitness? Right, we know that the recommendation for children to stay active is at least 60 minutes of physical activity. And so, during summer, a lot of kids don't have a lot of physical activity, right, because it's summer break, unless if they're in other camps or in sports that this is happening. So we said, okay, we're doing nutrition, we're doing fitness. What else, right? What else? Something fun, something that the kids are going to learn and can continue to do as they continue to grow, maybe as they go home. And so we came up with the idea of also adding cooking right, that component of hands-on cooking, right? And so it has been a hit. I know there's a few other camps that also offer cooking camps, and they are a hit too, right? Kids are so interested in learning how to make meals and learning how to make recipes, and those are skills that are not thought anymore, right? We're not teaching children how to use a knife properly, how to stir things, how to measure things, and in our minds like, ah, that doesn't matter, it absolutely does, right? These are the life skills that we're going to continue to use for the rest of our lives. And so, for knowing that, right, knowing how to make something for themselves, it's going to be huge, not only to know how to feed themselves, but also how to combine these food groups and make healthy and balanced meals. And so, when we came up with this idea of adding nutrition, fitness and cooking right, we said, okay, we have a perfect combo. Let's develop a curriculum, let's develop a plan to implement, right? The first year. I think the first two years were like lessons, lessons, lessons learned, right, let's try it and let's see how things go. Now, with the third year, we continue to perfect our camp and, with the feedback that we get from parents, with the feedback that we get from students, we try different age groups and so far what we've noticed is that ages upper elementary, like fifth grade, to middle school, fifth to eighth grade, seem to be the ages or the grades where students are really interested, right, yeah, they might complain, they might say, oh, I don't want to do the exercise, I don't want to stretch today, um, but they do it right and we, they have, we stay focused, right, the group, the working groups, and it helps them to develop leadership skills, right, but also communicating with each group and delegating tasks. So it has been really amazing, um, usually, the way that we start right, um, our program or our camp, because this camp is three weeks, three weeks during the summer, and we, our camp, usually and it has been like that since we started it goes from eight in the morning to 5 pm, so they come to camp, right, and we make breakfast. This year I had the opportunity to partner with one of my college professors to give volunteers right. I know that in our dietetics profession or our nutrition profession, hours are needed right, so they have to have volunteer hours, however many. And so I wanted to give that opportunity to my profession too. Right To give back. And so I had two volunteers and then some staff as well, and they did so. Amazing man. I can't thank them enough for how much work they did and the amazing things that they did to support me and also to support the students. So the students would come at around eight in the morning and we would make breakfast right. The volunteers and I, my staff and I would make breakfast. Right. I had a menu. The menu was balanced right. As a dietician, that was one of my priorities. I said, okay, we are going to feed these students right Breakfast, lunch and snacks, because we're going to have them for you know many hours. I want to make sure that they're fueling themselves properly and they're getting the nutrients that they need. You're going to hear my son. They're here, and so I'm sure he's going to come in crying, so it's going to be okay crying, so it's okay. So, um, yes, and we made breakfast, lunch and snacks. I made sure they were balanced. I had a menu. I would buy the ingredients, and we would come together and make these meals. The interesting thing, though, is that you might think, oh, kids are not going to veggies or they're not going to get fruit, and and then we would give them some time right to settle down. And you know, we had board games, we had different things that they could use puppets, puzzles, things that they could use to play, to play while we got ready, and just to give them some time to settle down after having their breakfast, and so, once that happened, then we would take them outside right and we would do a walk, about a 10-minute walk. You know, if they wanted to jog, they would jog. If they wanted to. Just, you know, walk slowly that's fine, but everybody needed to do a 10-minute walk, and that's before we started our exercise, right. And so then we, after they were finished their 10-minute walk, then we, the venue where we had it was pretty amazing, because there was a playground and there was a field, and so they had the chance to go in the playground and play. During the really hot days, like in the 110 degrees plus, we allowed them, or we gave them the opportunity to play outside longer right. Play outside longer right, because we knew that as soon as they hit 105, which was the recommendation to, or closer to that temperature to keep them inside for their own safety, and so we would give them the opportunity to play longer right, and then we would go inside, um, and my sister maria, who's the personal trainer, she would lead the fitness part of it. It when it was a circle type um program, right, where we would exercise for 30 seconds and rest for 30 seconds. Every day would be something different and uh, targeting different, different muscle, uh, muscle areas. And it was pretty amazing to see, you know, how, even the students that were struggling to do a movement which we would show them how to do, uh how to modify right for for their safety, we stretched right at the beginning of the exercises and then at the end of the program, and it was just so amazing to see them, like you know, getting into it. Um, sometimes the stretching, you know, before and after would be a little struggle because they wouldn't want to do it right. But my sister mentioned and this was really right that stretching is super important to prevent injuries, just to help them be flexible and stay healthy. And so now they're learning these things right, as if they decide to do a sport, how important it is to stretch before and after exercising. And then, once that was done, we would give them another another break right about 30 minutes, just for them to relax, you know, and have a little break, and then we will start our first cooking activity. Every day we did something different and we did two cooking activities right, because we have them for for a lot over the whole day. So so the first cooking activity was and we did different things we did tamales right in the pressure cooker and they learned how to mix the masa, how to add ingredients, how to mix things. They learned about tamale making right, how to soak the leaves, how to use the leaves and spread the, the dough, and then how to cook them right. We had, um, I don't know, I think we have like three or four pressure cookers and we put the, the tamales, in there and then they got to try them and, um, that was the first cooking activity. Then they would have another break and then they will have lunch right. While they were relaxing and having that break, then we would start lunch right, and we did different things. We did a chicken salad, which someone might think, oh, they're not going to eat that salad. Every single kid ate the salad, the chicken salad. And then we had pasta with lots of veggies in it and ground beef. We did tacos with rice and beans. We did oh my goodness, we did so many things I can't even remember. And then they would have a break, right, we would put a movie so they would relax. Break, right, we would put a movie so they would relax. We would have board games, we would play a game, and then, as they got to know each other, they started to have built like more of these, they started to feel comfortable with each other and they would play together, right, or they would exchange information so they can continue to, you know, stay connected. And so after that we, you know, after that break, then we will start our second activity, and we did in our second activity, we did a solar oven. It was really hot, so building that solar oven together and then putting their s'mores right, the graham crackers, marshmallow and chocolate, and we would take them outside and they would see that process right of the sun, the solar energy, melting the chocolate. It wasn't extremely hot to melt the marshmallow. But the idea was like how can we use natural energy right to melt something chocolate? We did many, many cakes right in the air fryer. We use the air air fryer a lot and that is one of the things that we use because we want to show students, we want to show kids, that you can make simpler meals in an air fryer, right, that doesn't require turning on the stove, and then, if, for some reason, right, you're spacey or you forget, the air fryer is set and it just turns off on its own, and so it's a little bit safer in that way. Obviously, we teach them about safety, right, and how, how things are hot and how to get them out in a safe way, but the idea is to use tools like kitchen gadgets that they can use with minimal supervision. So that that was that right. We did that. We did manikin, we did pita pizzas, we did rice krispies. What else did we do? Empanadas that was a huge one. We did empanadas, apple, and then some kiddos wanted just jelly, right, and they were able to do the dough and then do it themselves and then bake them. We did parfaits, yogurt parfaits and so many other activities, and then the plate right. We had lots of breaks. We know that students need a lot of breaks in different stages that they can use to not do one thing and then get bored and get distracted, and so we would encourage them to go outside. You know, if the temperature was allowing us, we would go outside and play volleyball or basketball or throw the football, or if they wanted to go into the playground, they were going to the playground. So it was just really amazing to see how much they learn just in one week. We had students that were with us for the, you know, three sessions, three weeks, and that was pretty amazing too. So we're excited to do it winter time right, and hopefully we start doing it also in the after school programs. That is on the works, and so we're excited to really continue to show students that they have these abilities right, that they're able to do these things, even kids that you know maybe are more higher functioning, maybe have autism and they need some extra support. The district was amazing at sending us paras, right paraprofessionals, to support that, and they were able to also participate, and so, essentially, anybody can learn right these skills and these tools that we're going to continue to use for the rest of our lives. And that is the idea right, the idea of our camp is to show students how to move their bodies, how to feel their bodies, in a healthy and a safe way, right, in a not judgmental way, and that all foods fit right, that we can use the five-way route. We can use everything in terms of nutrition to fill our bodies. And, yeah, it just has been really amazing, like this partnership, and you know, hopefully, that other school districts see all the work that Fresno Unified is doing and they're able to replicate that right, they're able to bring those programs to their schools because they provide so much knowledge but also a safe place, right, a safe place for students to go during the summer when parents are still having to work, but students, they still need a safe place to go right and to either learn or have fun, be out of the streets right, have a meal, and it's just really amazing. So we're so thankful to be part of them and I can't wait to continue to bring our services to the students and to the community. And so that is it, my friends. I hope that this inspires you, my friends, I hope that this inspires you and if you know any school districts or any programs that maybe want to add as this part, you know, nutrition, fitness and cooking as part of their curriculum, as part of what they do with students, let me know. And, yeah, take care, stay safe and I'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye for now.