Choose Health

Choose Health: Food, Fun, and Fitness
Hands-On, Interactive Healthy Eating and Active Living Lessons

Choose Health: Food, Fun, and Fitness (CHFFF) is an award-winning, comprehensive nutrition and fitness curriculum composed of six hands-on lessons for 8-12-year-olds (3rd-6th graders). Developed by Cornell University’s Division of Nutritional Sciences in collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension’s 4-H Youth Development Program, CHFFF uses experiential learning to teach healthy eating and active play, targeting behaviors research shows to be most important for preventing childhood obesity and chronic disease. Topics include replacing sweetened drinks with low-fat milk and water, eating more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, eating fewer high-fat and high-sugar foods, and playing actively 60 minutes a day. A unique characteristic of CHFFF is that it was also designed for use in our partner program Choose Health Action Teens (CHAT), in which teens are trained to co-teach CHFFF to younger youth.

Each lesson includes interactive nutrition activities, food preparation, active games, a goal setting challenge, and a family newsletter. Posters, visual aids, scanned food packages, game pieces and instruction cards, and other teaching materials are all included. CHFFF supports the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and USDA’s MyPlate, and uses a dialogue approach for more effective retention and application of information and skills. Practice-based evidence suggests that CHFFF promotes positive behavior change, with significant improvements from pre to post in vegetable and fruit consumption, sweetened drinks, reading nutrition labels, and other food and activity-related behaviors. If you are interested in CHFFF please contact the CCE Office today!

Choose Health Action Teens
Engaging youth in health promotion through the peer educator model

The Choose Health Action Teens (CHAT) program is a collaborative initiative of Cornell Cooperative Extension’s 4-H Youth Development Program and Cornell’s Division of Nutritional Sciences that integrates youth civic engagement with efforts to encourage healthy lifestyles by engaging teens in teaching healthy eating and active living to younger youth. CHAT trains interested teens to help teach the Choose Health: Food, Fun, and Fitness (CHFFF) curriculum to younger youth in after-school programs, summer camps, schools, and other settings. Teen educators are recruited and provided with a structured 12-hour training, as well as support and mentorship throughout the program. Evaluation suggests that participating teens gain leadership and facilitation skills and also change their own eating and physical activity habits. If you are interested in CHAT please contact the CCE office today!

Last updated July 26, 2019