Healthy Kids

The rationale of this project was that obesity was one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century. Over the last 25 years, obesity rates have been climbing steadily. Its prevalence has tripled in many countries of the WHO European Region since the 1980s, and the numbers of those affected continue to rise at an alarming rate, particularly among children. What's more, children who are obese are likely to remain that way into adulthood and, as such, are more prone to developing heart disease, diabetes, a number of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), and other life-altering, life-shortening conditions and in addition causing various psychological problems. Childhood obesity can also lead to poor self-esteem and depression. Both societies and governments need to act to curb the epidemic. The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported recently that about one-third of all European teenagers are fatter than they should be -- and it's ruining their health. Target group was primary education students at the first step. At the next step we got the families into the project. We aimed and kept the awareness of the families on the subject. We succeded in our our objectives as;• to create happy and healthy children who are physically fit and have improved eating habits• to create more positive attitude for students, staff and parents towards the European project and the EU values;• to promote a healthy and safe lifestyle for adults and children- to train individuals;who realizes the differences between healthy and unhealthy food,who has created their own philosophy of life,who has succeeded to take a breath in the age of technology,who is capable of sports,who has the healthy food in their liveswho is conscious of nature,who has proved themselves in every sense ,who has respect to their own personality.Our school started its activities on this subject in 2013. We realised that there were progress in eating healthy food among our pupils and their parents. Measurements of weight-height were gladsome in our pupils. With this good results, we carried the subject transnational. This project was complementary to our currently carried on activities. The project had 7 partners (Turkey (coordinator)Romania, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Poland, Greece) , We chose the partners according to the report of WHO which countries were at the high risk of being obese and chosen another group which has good practices on combating obesity. Our partners were all primary schools, since our project aimed to raise awareness in childhood.In order to achieve our goals, Some of our Learning-Teaching-Training activities were;- Lunch-box activity- Cultural evening- Cookbook- Multilingual dictionary with pictures- Postcards, nursery ryhmes, riddles- Costume party Expected results and potential longer term benefits were shortly, - Impacts on the participants and participating organizations were that they were impacted in their social and educational worlds by becoming more aware of the risks of unhealthy lifestyles and the threatens diseases. They also learnt about the potentials of a sustainable approach to food and a healthy life style through physical exercises and good habits. They saw that Europe also has similar problems and partners effected each other in a positive way by working together and doing the local activities. Moreover, their good and sincere relationship gave them the utmost motivation and they improved the English language. With the Project local activities and LTT activities, participants became more successful in their educational and social lives. Besides, students adopted good habits both at nutrition and also physical exercises. They had a better knowledge of responsibility, happier and good at decision giving. They had a better understanding of other cultures and countries. They were curious about other foreign languages except English.Teachers became more effective for their students. Cultural and educational exchange among partners enriched all participants personal/professional skills. Their horizons widened. Innovative methodologies and ICT usage were implemented successfully. Further contacts were established and self-confidence of teachers were increased. They gained the skill to manage international projects For the school, activities were increased a lot. Each month, school had activities to deal with. Other teachers wanted to do more European projects and the popularity of the school was high.Classrooms were equipped with any tool necessary to perform Project activities. For parents and local society, awareness to health was increased. They had the opportunity to meet specialists connected to health and Physical Education