They say “your health is your wealth” and for young people it is especially important to set up good habits and behaviours early for a happy, healthy life. The National Health Survey 2014-15 indicated that 28.6% of Victorian children are overweight or obese. It also indicated that only 3.6% of children met the Australian Dietary Guidelines for recommended daily serves of both fruit and vegetables.

With this in mind, the Geelong Cats in partnership with GMHBA have launched their community initiative, Healthy Heroes in schools. This one hour program specifically designed for Grade 3 and 4 students across the Barwon region is led by the Geelong players and aims to engage, educate and empower young students to make good choices about their health and wellbeing with key focuses on nutrition, water and physical activity.

Prior to the player visit, schools receive a pre-arrival booklet for the students to test out their knowledge on the key topics and a post-visit booklet to capture their understanding of the importance of health and wellbeing after the session has taken place.

46 schools will experience the Healthy Heroes program in 2017 which will see over 4000 students increase their understanding and skills required to make healthy and active choices which in turn enhance their health and wellbeing.

“We all know that health is too hard when you go it alone, so together with the Cats, we’ve build a practical health program to give year 3/4 students health guidance and information to put them on the right path,” GMHBA CEO Mark Valena said.

“GMHBA has a big ambition to help locals become healthier than ever before – the Healthy Heroes program will track physical activity, offer a food and water intake diary as well as other activities to raise awareness of good health habits.”

“We are thrilled to be driving this initiative to more than 44 schools in the region in partnership with the Cats.” 

Geelong Cats players Rhys Stanley and Mark Blicavs visited Chilwell Primary School in Newtown on Tuesday morning to kick off day one of Healthy Heroes.

“Healthy Heroes is all about guiding kids in the right direction when it comes to their health, wellbeing and making good choices,” Stanley said. 

“As footballers, we hope we can inspire and motivate grade 3 and 4 kids participating in the program and show them how easy it is to make healthy choices.”