SHINE Health Academy
Sport Sheffield has recently linked up with the SHINE Health Academy to help support the work they do with overweight and disadvantaged young people.
More about SHINE…..
Kath Sharman (Managing Director) says, “SHINE aims to help overweight and disadvantaged young people aged 10 - 17 years, to not only lose weight but also increase in confidence and self-esteem. The basic foundation of our courses are healthy lifestyles and promoting physical activity.
It’s a great privilege to be working with such a prestigious sports team on this next module which opens opportunities for obese young people to engage in activities that are normally outside their scope.”
SHINE is dependent on funding at present to sustain projects but has a long term plan for building capacity and sustaining these projects well into the future. A dedicated team of sessional and voluntary workers help deliver a wide range of interventions and SHINE offer training places to professionals to increase knowledge and understanding of obesity in children and young people.
How we are helping SHINE…..
SHINE operates a Healthier Lifestyle Programme for Young People. This programme is made up of modules such as Healthy Lifestyles; Managing Social Relationships and Managing Money. Our main role has been to help deliver the ‘Making the Most of Leisure Time’ module.
Between April and July Sport Sheffield staff have delivered workshops and led practical sessions for the young people as they learnt more about the benefits of exercise and looked at different ways to increase activity levels.
These sessions were delivered at the SHINE base at the Steel Inn and also saw the young people travel to Goodwin Sports Centre to take part in sessions at the University of Sheffield’s sporting facilities.
Away from the sessions we led, the group continued with their regular sessions which include swimming and dance and trips to Rother Valley Country Park and laser quest! These are combined with educational sessions around healthy eating/good nutrition with regular measuring and monitoring of the group’s progress – a fundamental part of improving the young people’s lifestyle.
Their residential session, in which the group went away for a week, saw them lose a significant amount of weight collectively which is a real credit to them and the team around them.
The sessions we ran…..
Our first session with young people at SHINE was a workshop session that gave an Introduction to Physical Activity. We discussed the differences between aerobic and anaerobic exercise; discussed how the cardio vascular system works; considered what happens to our bodies when we exercise and why it is important to exercise on a regular basis. We also looked at different ways to be more active.
Following this session we held a yoga session for the young people (and the leaders!!). The style of yoga we offered was Dru which is a flowing style of yoga. Some had tried yoga before and for others this something new. As you might expect this was more challenging for some than for others but ultimately it was fun and offered a new to get more active.
Our third session was Capoeira. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art than combines elements of dance and music. This was something he group hadn’t tried before but was an enjoyable, energetic session. This session also allowed the group to see Capoeira in full flow when they were able to watch a demonstration by the main Capoeira group. We must also mention that part of this session was led by an instructor in a ‘fat suit’ – designed to show the challenges faced by those the weight problems.
From there we then led our final practical session – a multi sports afternoon. During this session the group was given opportunities to try a number of activities such as self defence; bouldering; badminton; Pilates; and multi sports skills. We even managed to keep the group entertained (well the male section!) without resorting to football…! The aim of this, and all the other sessions, was to demonstrate that fitness can be fun and these were just a few ways to do it.
The module ended on 21st July with their awards ceremony and we were pleased to be asked to attend and help present the awards and medals to the young people.
All in all this has been a rewarding time for those involved from Sport Sheffield and we are pleased to be to contribute to such a worthwhile charity.
If you would like to find out more about SHINE then please visit http://www.shinehealthacademy.org.uk/
Posted: 23/08/2012 09:51:46 by
Adam