Get Fit, Get Right™
As more and more teens struggle with being overweight, Starlight launched Get Fit, Get Right™ to help overweight teens make small, sustainable changes to their eating and exercise habits in order to improve their health for the long term. Starlight’s goal is to stop the teen obesity epidemic and prevent the spread of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other obesity-related conditions in young people.
Targeting youth ages 13-18, Get Fit, Get Right features a "reality show" format that follows six overweight teenagers as they take on the challenge of improving their eating and exercise habits.
At www.getfitgetright.org, teens will learn about:
- low-calorie recipe alternatives for favorite meals when eating out with friends
- exercise tips to use during the school year
- how other teens have found success and what experts recommend
- tracking physical activity steps with a pedometer
Get Fit, Get Right was developed in collaboration with Dr. Francine Kaufman of Children's Hospital Los Angeles and produced by MEE Productions, a social marketing and communications firm with offices in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. Get Fit, Get Right content is based on Kids N Fitness, a program at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Studies done on Kids N Fitness have shown improvement in weight stabilization and reduction in Body Mass Index (or BMI) in overweight children and youth. Starlight is also designing a study with Dr. Kaufman to evaluate Get Fit, Get Right that is undergoing IRB review at Childrens.
In December 2008, The Patient Channel aired a program entitled Managing Weight Issues in Children which folloed ethree families as they learned to make better health decisions, including a Starlight family – the Curveys (whose son Troy is pictured above with the basketball). In addition to highlighting our Get Fit, Get Right program, the piece also featured interviews with Paula Van Ness and Dr. Francine Kaufman, showcased our new Fun Centers featuring the Wii, and provided other information about the work Starlight does with our hospital partners. The show reached approximately 16 million patients and caregivers at their point of need in the hospital and was honored with a 2009 Freddie Award ( otherwise known as the International Health & Medical Media Awards) in the Nutrition & Diet category.