Since 1951, the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health has offered the Sports Fitness Program to Champaign-Urbana with one goal in mind: encourage kids to be physically active and promote healthy lifestyles.
With 270 participants, the program is larger today than it has ever been. But it still keeps the same goal.
“We downplay the competitive side of things and focus on learning the basic skills,” director Gary Crull said.
“We want to expose them to things so that hopefully they’ll find something that is of interest to them and want to stay involved with and find a way to stay physically active.”
The program is wrapping up its first week, which has gone well according to Applied Health Sciences graduate Pedro Sardela.
“The first week is always a bit hectic, but we have a lot more instructors so it’s been a lot more controlled,” Sardela said. “The first week has been so far, so good. As the weeks go on it gets better.”
Using Campus Recreation’s facilities, the kids participate in three activities for up to 50 minutes, which can range from an individual or dual sport such as playing pickle ball, to a team sport, to Hip Hop dancing.
Twice each week the children also receive a nutrition lesson and even get to make their own healthy snacks in the ARC’s kitchen every other week.
One of the big motivators among the workers at the camp is the rise in obesity among young people.
“We want kids to find something that they have fun doing.” Crull added.
“I understand why today parents are a lot more cautious of letting their kids out of sight, but if they aren’t given an opportunity like this, they’re going to be sitting at home in front of the television or computer. The only way they’re going to develop the habits is to start young.”
It’s not just the kids that learn, either. Sardela said the experience has helped him with teamwork and time management with the other instructors as well as round out his Kinesiology background.
The program has two four-week periods, with morning and afternoon sessions. Children can also be in all eight weeks and in both time slots for a reduced price.