Join the Macon County Health Department’s Family Winter Wellness Challenge from
February 5 – April 1, 2024
What is the family Winter Wellness Challenge?
The family winter wellness challenge is a 8-week challenge to motivate your family to increase movement, encourage healthy eating, and incorporate other wellness practices into your daily life. Building healthy habits as a family, including with children in the household, can help create a lifetime of healthy habits for everyone.
Each week our staff will send out a short weekly newsletter with information on the week’s topic, share a video of a healthy recipe, and set a weekly challenge to improve eating or physical activity habits. We will encourage physical activity throughout the challenge with a gift of a pedometer to each person in the family and physical activity tracking throughout the 8 weeks.
Members will be invited to a private Facebook group to encourage accountability, two-way conversation, and help improve a sense of community during this challenge. We are all working together!
What is the commitment?
It is a 8-week challenge.
How much time you spend weekly on the challenge is up to you. The more consistent you are, the more you are likely to get out of the challenge. We would recommend about 2 hours each week for reading the newsletter, talking about it with your family, enjoying family meals together, making different food choices, and trying the weekly recipe.
Your time commitment to your physical activity is how much you can commit. The recommendations for exercise vary by age:
- Toddlers (3-5): Be active throughout the day
- Children/Teens (6-17): 60 minutes of physical activity throughout the day
- Adults: 150 minutes each week of cardiovascular exercise and 2 sessions of strength training each week
Talk with your doctor before starting any kind of physical activity routine. If the recommendations seem too much for you, start small and talk with Erin or Stacy at the Health Department to set more attainable goals for yourself.
Is there a cost?
The challenge is FREE!
What age ranges would this challenge be for?
This challenge is for everyone – from toddlers to adults. Having fun together as a family will help everyone improve their habits and build a healthy lifestyle. Children look up to their parents and other adults in their life when it comes to encouraging healthy habits, which is why we want the whole family to be involved. We will customize this challenge for families to address healthy eating, physical activities, and other healthy behaviors for different age ranges that may be in your family.
Can I get a free cholesterol test as part of this challenge?
Yes, everyone is offered a free fingerstick cholesterol and blood sugar test as part of the challenge and then we will give you a voucher to retest it within 6 months to check for measurable change. Cholesterol tests can be an important indicator of overall health and is important to keep down within normal limits. We are opening up this test to everyone, although we would discourage young kids from taking the test; that is a question we can address individually or you can speak to your doctor about. For cholesterol testing, you will get the best results by fasting before this test.
What if my family doesn’t like to eat healthily?
Healthy eating is a grayscale. What is healthy to one person, might not be to another. There is no right and wrong when it comes to the food in our bodies because we all have different needs, cooking skills, access to foods, and preferences. You have to do what is best for your family. If you want to learn about ways to prepare different foods, more ideas, and ways to serve foods, then this challenge is for you. You will get what you want out of it, it’s not all about eating salmon and broccoli for every meal (although that is a delicious and nutritious meal).
We understand that the perception of eating healthy is that it costs too much. Our goal with this challenge is to show affordable and convenient options your family may love. We will break down costs and use our local grocery stores in Macon County to show what we have access to. If you want to learn more about easy grocery shopping, check out our grocery store guide!
How will I know what I benefitted from this challenge?
Whatever changes you make that help your family are a benefit. Something is always better than nothing. This small change you’re learning during the challenge could benefit your family in the long run by promoting healthy foods and habits, decreasing your child’s risk of obesity and chronic disease.
At the beginning and the end of the challenge, we are offering free screenings for adults that check: cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, height, and weight. If you choose to participate in these screenings, then you can see if there was measurable change.
Questions?
Contact Erin or Stacy at the Macon County Health Department at 660-395-4711.
Where can I sign up?
You can sign up using the form below or stop by the Health Department.
Everyone will need to come by the Health Department before the challenge starts to pick up the welcome packet and pedometers, and receive your free screenings. We will also have you sign a social media agreement for the private Facebook page and photo consent.
