Childhood Obesity Specialists Panama City FL

Candice Shoemaker thinks she may have an answer to the nation’s obesity epidemic in children. The associate professor of horticulture, forestry and recreation resources at Kansas State University has received a $1.04 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Research Institute to study whether gardening can promote a healthier lifestyle. The study is called Project PLANTS (Promoting Lifelong Activity and Nutrition Through Schools). Shoemaker and her colleagues will work to create gardens and high tunnels (for gardening during the winter months) in Manhattan-Ogden Unified School District schools, as well as an after-school program for fourth- and fifth-grade students to grow their own fruits, vegetables and flowers. She hopes to show that gardening can promote a healthier lifestyle and combat childhood obesity in several ways:

• When children help grow their own fruits and vegetables, they’re more interested in eating them.
• Gardening gets kids off the couch and into the outdoors; it also counts as physical activity.
• Students in the after-school gardening club will take home plants and care for them at home. This encourages home gardening and provides knowledge of, and ownership in, tending the plants.