The “Live Healthy Iowa” Kids Governor’s Challenge finished their 100-day activity and nutrition challenge on April 25th, with just over 31,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade students participating on 1,322 teams. The Governor’s Challenge encourages youth to be more active and make better nutrition choices, and is a way for Iowa schools to win monetary awards to purchase new physical education or playground equipment. In order to be eligible for cash prizes, teams must report each week of the challenge. Four schools won a $500 cash prize each, while the top cash prize of $1,000, went to the Creston Elementary School, in Creston.

Teams recorded their minutes of activity, servings of fruit, vegetables, milk/water and screen time. The totals from the challenge included:  more than 62.8-million minutes of activity; 759,000 servings of fruit; 447,000 servings of vegetables; 490,000 servings of milk and/or water; and more than 1.7-million hours of screen time. Live Healthy Iowa Kids is a free statewide 100-day challenge for youth inspiring them to be more active and make better food choices. During the program, participants aim to be active for 60 minutes a day, at least five days a week. Youth will also be challenged to track their nutrition habits. In 2011, the Live Healthy Iowa Kids/Governor’s Challenge had nearly 11,000 participants on 549 teams registered for the challenge.

For more information about Live Healthy Iowa Kids, visit www.livehealthyiowakids.org.  Live Healthy Iowa Kids was created in 2004 as a program of the Iowa Sports Foundation and is endorsed by the Iowa Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness & Nutrition. Live Healthy Iowa Kids’ youth initiatives are free programs encouraging Iowa’s youth to be more active and learn about healthy food choices in a positive, fun way. Since they began, more than 500,000 youth have participated in Live Healthy Iowa Kids/Governor’s Challenge, Go the Distance Day and Fall Fitness Day.