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Healthy Body
Maintaining a healthy weight can help reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Research shows that a healthy weight and staying active can also improve overall mood and well-being. For many people, maintaining or establishing a healthy weight means eating a balanced diet of nutritious food and doing regular physical activity that they enjoy. In our region of Elkhart, Marshall, and Saint Joseph counties, obesity rates are high while opportunities to maintain a healthy lifestyle are limited in certain populations.
In an effort to curb obesity rates and improve community well-being, Beacon Community Impact supports programming that makes the healthier option the easier option through our Healthy Body priority.
Due to the overwhelming body of evidence that obesity rates are on the rise, Beacon Community Impact has placed an emphasis on three focus areas that are known to reduce obesity:
Focus 1
Improve nutrition, physical activity and weight-related outcomes of children.
Focus 2
Increase parent/guardian engagement in promoting health, wellness and academic learning.
Focus 3
Decrease the number of diabetic/pre-diabetic children and adults.
Community Partners
Community partners within this priority represent a wide range of programming aimed at improving the health of mothers and their children. Below is a list of our current partners with details on the programming they offer.
- Provide League Cycling Instructor training that allows newly trained instructors to teach bicycle safety to all ages, enabling both youth and adults to feel
- The Center for the Homeless Dining Services Program is an essential service we provide for the men, women and children living at the Center.
- La Casa de Amistad strives to find ways to help youth succeed, families develop, and communities strengthen through educational activities and advocacy programs that
- Michiana VegEDU educates the community, specifically at-risk communities, on the health benefits of a plant-based diet through educational lectures, cooking demonstrations, and displays by
- The Healthy Hearts program uses lectures and hands-on activities during six weeks of sessions. The program aims to prevent childhood obesity by empowering students
- Unity Gardens’ Health Over Hunger Youth Program uses food and gardening activities to attract neighborhood children to their garden in South Bend. Each summer,
- The HEAL program aims to decrease chronic diseases in the community by empowering residents of Upper Room Recovery Community to select, prepare, and eat
Beacon Community Impact Programs
In addition to our externally funded community partners, Beacon Community Impact provides the following programming within our Healthy Body Priority:
- ACHIEVE! is an Elementary PE Curriculum for grades K-5 offers a standards-based, sequential approach that emphasizes both skill development and physical fitness. Lessons are
- Dame tu Mano es un programa en Español enfocado en la prevención y detección temprana de enfermedades a través de la educación. Dame tu
- 574.647.2100 or 574.647.2175 Women, Infants and Children programs provides supplemental foods, health care referrals and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding postpartum
