EAT and RUN Program

About the Program

Category: Children and Youth (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

Fairfax County Office for Children developed EAT and RUN, an educational program designed to combat childhood obesity by promoting physical activity and healthy eating in family child care homes. The program helps permitted family child care providers meet the new requirements of the county’s Home Child Care Ordinance which went into effect in 2013. These requirements include providing adequate space both indoors and outdoors for physical activity, and adhering to age-appropriate nutritional guidelines set forth by the United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Services. OFC staff collaborated with Live Healthy Fairfax on the development of the “EAT and RUN” program and book, which features 15 EAT and 15 RUN activities that family child care providers can easily incorporate into their programs. Live Healthy Fairfax, comprised of multiple county agencies and community partners, encourages healthy lifestyle choices. EAT and RUN has also proven to be an effective tool for retaining family child care providers and recruiting others to join the USDA Child and Adult Care Food Program, which reimburses them for the nutritious meals they provide to children. To date, more than 453 family child care providers have attended an EAT and RUN workshop to learn how to use the book and incorporate the activities in their programs, which have supported their continuing participation in the CACFP. Recruitment efforts using the “EAT and RUN” book have also resulted in 83 providers joining the CACFP. Additionally, the book has been shared with other county organizations working with young children, including the Health Department and the Neighborhood School Readiness Teams in Fairfax County; it has been given to CACFP sponsor organizations from across the country; and as staff presents the EAT and RUN program at national conferences, it is being enthusiastically adopted as a recruitment and retention tool in other jurisdictions.