nrg Powered by Choice

Empowers teens to take an active role in healthy living

Additional Information

To encourage healthy habits

Highmark Healthy High 5 programs designed to encourage greater involvement in nutrition and physical activity include:

• LearntobeHealthy.org
  Susan P. Byrnes Health Education Center
  www.byrneshec.com
• Highmark Healthy High 5 Health eTools for Schools
  InnerLink, Inc.
  www.healthetoolsforschools.com
• KidShape
  www.kidshape.com
• Highmark Healthy High 5 SPARK
  SPARK (Sports, Play, Activity and Recreation for Kids)
  www.paspark.org
  

Penn State Hershey Center for Nutrition and Activity Promotion

Teens have great influence on families, younger children and the economy. Engaging them in changing and shaping the future will create lasting social change. Through nrg Powered by Choice^TM, teens have the opportunity play an integral role in communicating what they believe will make healthy easy.

nrg Powered by Choice is a teen-powered health movement that strives for energy balance (energy in = energy out). The movement empowers teens, age 13 to 18, to create and lead changes that support healthy eating and active lifestyles in their schools and communities.

This grassroots movement steeped in the teen world of online communication, nrg Powered by Choice connects youth leaders to industry, media, schools, recreation agencies, and local organizations to improve nutrition and physical activity. Teens become the force behind improving nutrition and physical activity with the help of these connections.

The movement provides teens and adult advisors with three levels of engagement — Own it. Share it. Change it:

• Own it – teens “declare” their support for healthy living and rally their friends and family to do the same.
• Share it – Teens share the nrg message with their friends through e-cards, personal Web page graphics, viral marketing contests, and cool online promotions. Teens can also connect to nrg Powered by Choice – and invite their friends to do the same – on social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Flickr and DoSomething.
• Change it – Teens work with an advisor to lead changes that make it easier for themselves and their peers to eat healthy and be active. By hosting an nrg Ultimate Frisbee^® Tournament fundraiser, teens can raise funds to install a climbing wall for a school’s physical education class, purchase disc golf for a community park and much more!

Keeping the next generation healthy is a great incentive for adult advisors such as teachers, coaches, and community leaders to promote the nrg Powered by Choice campaign.

Developed by the Penn State Hershey Center for Nutrition and Activity Promotion, with funding from Highmark Healthy High 5, nrg Powered by Choice has engaged more than 6,000 Pennsylvania teens and their adult advisors in the campaign to make healthy easy.