Not Too Late To Get Your Kids Active With The All Recreate On Fridays (ARF) Movement!

By Kimberly Barrett, Cardiovascular Health Program

The new year is nearly here! Nebraska adults are sure to declare a New Year’s Resolution…and many times it is focused on physical activity and healthy eating (or losing a few pounds!) What better way to meet your goals than to be an active role model for the pre-school children you influence! The All Recreate on Fridays (ARF) Movement will set the stage to get you and those youth you influence on a daily basis active…in a fun way!
In an effort to get kids more physically active, the (ARF) Movement was created and launched across Nebraska in 2004. The ARF Movement is supported by Federal Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded to the HHS Cardiovascular Health Program.
Simply put, ARF is a free incentive-based physical activity movement targeting pre-school through middle school-aged youth, being implemented across Nebraska schools, families, faith-based and youth organizations during the school year.
The goals of ARF are to:

Get kids moving and have FUN doing it

• Educate youth to be active through a variety of movements- at any time or in any place
• Create a social and physical environment that supports physical activity and healthy eating behaviors
• Provide an array of creative ideas that will support existing programs/activities to accumulate activity time
• Ultimately, prevent and reduce childhood obesity in Nebraska.

The ARF Movement supports established physical activity programs or provides the tools to get one started. ARF provides coordinators with:

• Key Physical Activity, Physical Development, and Nutrition Guidelines/Recommendations
• Innovative games and activities
• Curricular and non-curricular “Brain Boosters”
• Monthly newsletters highlighting physical activity programming, events, grants, additional activities/brain boosters, nutrition news, recipes, & games.
• Monthly activity calendar for youth
• National, state and local resources and grants
• Technical assistance.

Much like a child’s education must start at an early age, so must establishing healthy behaviors. Pre-school site coordinators keep track of physical activity time and have opportunity to turn these trackers in to receive classroom materials. Materials provided for pre-schools include stickers, action academic alphabet and number cards, music CDs, healthy snacks kids’ cookbooks, and fun physical activity-based books.
To find out more about the program or to register your site for ARF, log on to www.hhss.ne.gov/cvh and click on “All Recreate on Fridays Movement” located in the right-hand column.

Have a healthy, active winter!