Blue Zones Challenge

The Blue Zones Challenge is a four-week health and fitness program. It empowers students to take charge of their own health and to apply what they discover in our Quests to their own lives. Through this challenge, students have the opportunity to actually create their own personal Blue Zones.

Experts have shown that for the first time in living history, it's possible that children's lifespan will be shorter than that of their parents. The culprit: childhood obesity. Children are more inactive and eat fewer healthy foods than in decades past. The Danish Twin Study established that our genes determine 30 percent of our longevity, while 70 percent depends on our lifestyle. So we've chosen four lifestyle behaviors that we have learned contribute to a long and healthy life.

The Blue Zones Challenge teams students, parents, and educators in an effort to alter the four key behaviors that impact childhood obesity. This personalized program empowers students, with the support of their parents and teachers, to take charge of their own health by tracking servings of fruits and vegetables; periods of physical activity; servings of sweetened beverages; and periods of watching television.

The time is now to make significant differences in children's lives. Though this program is designed for students, we encourage everyone to track and set goals that can lead to a long and healthy life.

Getting Started

1. Begin the Discussion

Launch the Blue Zones Challenge with an open dialogue about your students' health habits and yours. Do your students know how much exercise they get each day? How much television they watch? How many serving of fruits, vegetables and sweetened beverages they consume? How do they feel about what they're currently doing? How do they think they compare to the national average? Do they think their current behaviors are healthy?

Need some other ideas? Check out our Strategies for Success.

PDFs:

Strategies For Success (110 KB)

2. Pre-Challenge Week

With students as the driving force, they will be most successful with combined involvement from both parents and educators. When you are ready to begin, send home the Letter to Parents. Rather than keeping everything at home, we recommend you keep the Blue Zones Challenge Log, a tool for students to record their daily habits, in your classroom for easier management.

PDFs:

Letter to Parents (68 KB)
Blue Zones Challenge Log (6.4 MB)

3. Week 1

When you have completed Pre-Challenge Week, send home the Blue Zones Challenge Contract. Students will determine both long-term and weekly goals for the Blue Zones Challenge with the help of their parents. Your students are to then return the Contract (signed by both students and parents) to you for monitoring purposes.

Throughout Weeks 1-3, use the suggested Blue Zones Challenge activities to have fun, learn new concepts and give your students the tools they need to meet their individual goals. Don't forget to have students log on to the Web site to enter in their data.

PDFs:

Blue Zones Challenge Contract (5.6 MB)

4. Weeks 2-3

For the remaining two weeks, work with your students to complete the Challenge Logs and make sure they enter in their data on the Web site.

5. Wrapping Up

Ask students to submit their completed Contracts. Have another classroom discussion: Were they able to meet their goals? What were the most difficult obstacles they encountered? Did they feel they were able to make any lasting changes to improve their health and fitness?

Have students share their stories with us at contact@questnetwork.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . We will post the most inspiring stories on our Web site to motivate other students.

Lessons

Extend the Quest experience and bridge the connections between what your students know and what they do. The Blue Zones Challenge is an open-ended learning experience that offers countless opportunities for critical-thinking skills, such as inquiry, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Use the Blue Zones Challenge to help students make the connection between the science of healthy aging and their own long-term health.

Use these Blue Zones Challenge Lessons along with the Blue Zones Challenge to make an impact on children’s health and wellness.

Lesson 1

In this lesson, students can understand the importance of being physically active and identify physical activity scenarios.

PDFs:

Get Moving (83 KB)

Lesson 2

In this lesson, students can identify ways to increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables.

PDFs:

Heathier Food, Healthier You (47 KB)

Lesson 3

In this lesson, students can read nutritional labels, understand the health costs associated with consuming sweetened beverages, calculate the financial cost of consuming sweetened beverages, and identify ways to reduce their own consumption of sweetened beverages.

PDFs: