HEALTHY HABITS
National 4‑H Council and the Walmart Foundation developed the 4‑H Healthy Habits program to teach skills in nutrition and food access to underserved, disadvantaged youth and families.
What is 4‑H Healthy Habits?
The Healthy Habits program uses a four-pronged approach to strategically leverage the 4‑H system to address food access, nutrition and health equity for underserved youth and families across the country:
- Deploys university-backed, impactful programming.
- Reaches diverse audiences through local partnerships.
- Engages youth voice for more impactful delivery and clear messaging.
- Provides a system of sustainability to enable continued impact for underserved youth and their families in urban and rural communities.
How it works
Leveraging the proven influence of young people, 4‑H Healthy Habits engages teens to empower their peers and families today and to help establish sustainable, healthy habits for their families and communities tomorrow.
The program employs a ‘Teens as Teachers” approach with teens educating younger youth and empowering their parents and families to make healthy food choices.
4-H Healthy Habits Guidebook
Interested in planning, implementing and/or evaluating a 4-H Healthy Habits program? Use this guidebook to find background information and suggestions for providing educational programming that is relevant and meets community-identified needs.
Click to Enlarge the States Impacted Map
Impact
Through 4-H’s 8-year partnership with the Walmart Foundation, 4-H Healthy Habit has served 1.25M youth and families. In 2020/2021 alone, nearly 99,000 youth and 78,000 family/community members engaged in nutrition activities through Healthy Habits.
- 4-H Healthy Habits positively impacted young people around the U.S. in 2020/2021:
- 93% of youth reported they always or usually pay attention to how much fruit and vegetables they eat each day.
- 72% of youth reported they gave their family ideas for healthy meals or snacks.
- 88% of youth reported they plan to prepare their family healthy meals or snacks.
- 91% of youth reported they plan to drink the recommended amount of water. They reported they learned how to make healthy food choices through 4-H HH.
4‑H Youth Healthy Habits Survey
Survey finds teens believe access to healthy food is a basic human right and aim to solve food insecurity in the wake of COVID-19
A new survey commissioned by National 4‑H Council explores teen perceptions around health and nutrition. The survey, which polled over 1,500 diverse youth between the ages of 13-19 nationwide, investigated youth perceptions on the topics of food access, nutrition and health equity. The survey was conducted online from March 9 to March 16, 2020.
Healthy living activities
Find Healthy Living related activities on CLOVER
4-H Fresh Chefs Digital Cookbook
Explore nearly 50 recipes from 4‑H’ers, supporters, and 4‑H alumni — including celebrity chef, author, and Tennessee 4‑H alumna Carla Hall — in the Fresh Chefs digital cookbook.
Shop 4-H Healthy Living Curriculum
From food science to fitness, Shop 4‑H offers a variety of healthy living curriculum.
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