CrimFit Nutrition Program brings exercise and nutrition education to thousands of Flint kids at home

August 15, 2020

Summary: During the COVID-19 pandemic, students and their parents in Flint, MI, are learning how to eat healthy and exercise through a series of online video lessons and safe, socially-distanced outdoor activities.

Challenge: Many Flint residents have limited access to healthy, affordable foods and they may develop unhealthy eating and exercise habits as a result. In a city where many families cannot afford to make healthy eating or physical activity a priority, introducing fruits and vegetables and scheduled exercise is easier said than done.

The Crim Fitness Foundation (Crim) is no stranger to Flint families’ needs. It has been implementing health-oriented programming in the city’s public school system for years. But as Flint kids began online-only schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, opportunities for physical exercise and nutrition education became scarce. With the pandemic preventing Crim staff from visiting children at school, their education methods had to change.

Solution: A team of Crim staffers has brought the Crim’s Nutrition Program (CrimFit) out of the classroom and into families’ homes. To continue programming this year, the Crim is using funding from SNAP-Ed grants from Michigan Fitness Foundation (MFF).

Before the pandemic, CrimFit delivered PE-Nut (Physical Education and Nutrition Working Together™) programming that included six visits to every classroom in kindergarten, second, fourth, and sixth grades, and Linking Lessons™ programming in eighth grade, in around 17 schools over the course of an academic year. Those visits introduced new foods to kids, as well as reintroducing known foods in new recipes in the hopes that kids will learn to like them. CrimFit aims to reach families where they eat, live, learn, shop, work, and play, and to engage parents in healthy activities along with their kids.

Because of the pandemic, however, the CrimFit team had to try new ways of distributing information and promoting physical activity. Over the summer, CrimFit staff members recorded over 50 lessons on nutrition and exercise for kids to watch at home over the course of the school year.

“When you’re well-fed, when you have the proper amount of exercise, especially for kids, they’re better learners. That’s why we do it. We want to improve those overall health outcomes,” said Crim Project Manager Samantha Farah.

Sustaining success: As with the program’s pre-COVID-19 nutrition education lessons, CrimFit is working on taking a multifaceted approach in order to reach as many students as possible through different media. This summer, CrimFit in collaboration with MFF hosted outdoor physical activity demonstrations while closely following Centers for Disease Control guidelines.

The pandemic has cast a shadow of uncertainty over almost every aspect of life. Even now, many parents, teachers, and children are not sure what the coming months will look like. Despite this, CrimFit and its partners have made it a priority to provide consistent and effective nutrition education and physical activity promotion to thousands of Flint families.