For 100 children at the Highland Park Boys and Girls Club, fitness is about to become more fun.
At least that's the hope of members of Leadership Chattanooga, a program that develops leadership skills by familiarizing members with community issues.
Thursday evening the group launched its "Fun 2B Fit" community project, a six-week fitness program that will address the lack of youth physical exercise by creating game-oriented 30-minute workouts for Highland Park Boys and Girls Club children.
"With the growing crisis of childhood obesity, we felt like that was the topic to tackle," said Tonya Gentry, a Leadership Chattanooga group member and organizer of the program.
At the kickoff event, the children got a sneak preview of what's in store for the next six weeks. After being introduced to members of Leadership Chattanooga, the children were given a chance to play a game of "dance tag."
Boys and Girls Club peer leaders led the activity, which closely resembled a normal game of tag, with music playing in the background.
A dozen peer leaders, ages 14 to 17, will lead the children in the workouts for the next six weeks. Three interns from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's Health and Human Performance department created the workout "curriculum," which Ms. Gentry said centers around games rather than "just sit-ups and push-ups."
Debbie Gray, executive vice president of the Boys and Girls Club of Chattanooga, said the program not only will help increase youth physical activity, but will give the peer leaders an opportunity to hone their leadership skills.
"This curriculum is so wonderful because they wrote it to where our peer leaders can lead it," Ms. Gray said. "So our teenagers are going to understand their leadership roles ... and this is going to be a way for them to help out and get involved."
Ms. Gray said the Boys and Girls Club was approached by Leadership Chattanooga at the perfect time, since the organization has been trying for several years to promote healthy lifestyles and proper nutrition.
"We've been working on various programs, because we see the importance of that," she said. "I think where our kids come from, we just realize we really need to be giving them some more of that. There's a lot of health issues that come along with non-good nutrition."
Meanvre Thirkill, 10, said he's looking forward to participating in the Fun 2B Fit program. He said he hopes at least some of the workouts will include basketball, his favorite sport.
Thirteen-year-old Victoria Ware said the program will add to the exercise she already gets while at school, and she's anticipating playing games such as dodgeball.
Organizers said they hope the pilot program has positive effects on the children even outside of health and fitness.
"We've seen a lot of things in the news lately about the violence," Ms. Gray said. "And I think this is just a way to show that we want to bring people in and we're trying to do everything we can to combat that and bring them into a positive place. If you give kids choices, usually they make good decisions."