Middlesbrough pupils take up health challenge

5th January 2010

Type: News

Categories: Love Middlesbrough News

The brain-power, imagination and inspiration of Middlesbrough’s school pupils is to be harnessed in a special challenge to improve the health of young people.

Middlesbrough Council with NHS Middlesbrough and Middlesbrough Environment City have launched the ‘Young People’s Health Challenge’ as part of the town’s £9m Healthy Town programme.

The Challenge will see pupils from seven secondary schools in the town taking up the gauntlet to find new and innovative ways to help Middlesbrough’s young people become more active and healthy.

Each school will tackle a specific theme and the best ideas will become reality in the town’s schools with the help of cash and expert support from the Healthy Town team.

The challenge was sparked by a major report, commissioned by the Healthy Town programme, which looked into attitudes and behaviours in Middlesbrough in relation to physical exercise and healthy eating.

The report found that many young people in the town had perceived barriers which stopped them from being more active and healthy.

These included the weather, time constraints, lack of knowledge of cooking healthy food or growing food and the belief that it is expensive living healthily.

The pupils have been set the task to create projects which help to overcome these barriers.

Councillor Brenda Thompson, Executive Member for Public Health and Sport at Middlesbrough Council, said: “The pupils have certainly got a tough task on their hands.

“But we are confident they can come up with some innovative and new ideas to try and improve the health of young people in Middlesbrough.

“The Healthy Town’s programme has more than 40 projects on-going to help improve the health and well-being of people in Middlesbrough.

“We hope the best ideas from the schools will join that list and the Healthy Town team will back those ideas with financial assistance and expertise.

“I wish all the schools the best of luck.”

The schools taking part in the Young People’s Health Challenge are King’s Manor and Ormesby School, who will be tackling the theme of Youth Engagement, Unity City Academy and Hall Garth are looking at Enhanced Play and the Physical Environment, MacMillan Academy and Trinity Catholic College will be working on Active Travel and Acklam Grange School on Urban Farming.

The teams will have a month to create their project idea and then they will deliver a presentation to a panel of judges at James Cook University Hospital on February 8.

Each team will get a facilitator from the Healthy Town team to help them develop the project and help from a local councillor who will ensure that any proposal the young people present is deliverable.

All successful projects will initially be delivered as a pilot in the school with a view to them being rolled out to all other schools after the final assessment.

The panel judging the projects includes Dr Peter Heywood, Director of Public Health for Middlesbrough, Cllr Brenda Thompson, Keith Lewis, Healthy Town programme manager and Cllr Len Junier, who is on the panel as the Young Persons' Champion.

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