Healthy Kids Blog Series – Lace Up Your Sneakers

Literacy is the pathway to liberation, and the ability to read can ignite newfound freedoms for beginning readers.

Guided by this sentiment, CLI will be highlighting titles from our Healthy Kids book list over the next several weeks in an effort to encourage children and their families to grow a liberating understanding of health and inspire them not just to read but to prioritize their health.

Our work is rooted in principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging – and as such, our book list is curated to show that there is a space for everyone, keeping in mind that everyone’s background contributes to how they interact with literature and media.

Throughout the next six weeks, we will feature books that coincide with six different areas of children’s health with the aim of stimulating identity-building and affirmation, understanding, and joy around their well-being.

Topics will include:

• The Importance of Movement
• Balanced Eating
• The Importance of Rest
• How to be Mindful
• Forming Healthy Habits
• How to Bring it in with the Home Stretch (and the importance of stretching!)

Lace Up Your Sneakers!

To kick off our six-week book marathon, we’re inviting you to read alongside our CLI team and prepare to lace up your running sneakers! Gather your young readers and share our first chosen title, You Should Meet Roberta Gibb, a book based on the true story of the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.

You Should Meet Roberta Gibb Author: Laurie Caulkhoven Illustrator: Monica Dong Set in 1966, You Should Meet Roberta Gibb tells the inspiring story of Roberta, who was denied her request to run the Boston Marathon because women were deemed physically incapable. Undeterred, she disguised herself in a blue hoodie and her brother’s shorts and ran anyway. To her surprise, her male counterparts cheered her on as she became the first woman to run the event. This book will inspire young readers to chase their wildest dreams and, with your help, can encourage children to build healthy exercise habits.

Regular physical activity has many benefits, including the ability to build strong bones and muscles, reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, and reduce the risk of developing health conditions. After reading Roberta’s influential story, encourage your young readers into movement, especially once they arrive home from school.

Recognize that physical activity isn’t just what happens in the gym or at school and that children are more amenable to exercise when it’s fun – not a “should-do” activity. Have children engage in movement that stimulates play, such as tag, capture the flag, dance, bike riding, or running like Roberta! All are their own forms of movement and are great for children’s health!

Creating a space for children to engage in fun, meaningful exercise is also essential when encouraging them into movement. Help protect parks and other child-oriented spaces, visit your local recreational areas, or even clear a space in your own home so that your young readers can participate in healthy exercise.

We want children to enjoy exercise, build a relationship with physical activity that they employ through to their adulthood, and feel proud of their understanding of the benefits of movement. When children engage in exercise as well as the other vital habits CLI intends to explore over the next several weeks, they become empowered in their general health and free to live their lives to the fullest.

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