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"Camp Champions" teaches kids healthy lifestyles

Children's Hospital Colorado summer program
Posted at 8:35 AM, Aug 05, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-05 13:25:24-04

As the 2016 Summer Olympics kick off, it's a great time to encourage kids to be active and healthy.

"Camp Champions" is wrapping up a week of activities focused on health eating, exercise, stress management, and self esteem building.

"Building these skills and knowledge base is a foundation for preventing obesity and other chronic conditions across a lifetime," said Deb Federspiel, of the Child Health Advocacy Institute at Children's Hospital Colorado.

The camp is a partnership between Children's Hospital Colorado and the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center.

This week about 20 kids participated. They learned to prepare healthy meals and how to incorporate exercise into their daily activity.  They even learned new things like yoga, for stress relief. Ten-year-old Teresa Herrera says the yoga was especially calming.

"We were talking yesterday about stress and how it can overwhelm you and it can make you stress eat and make you lazier, so you don't want to stay active," she said.

The kids in "Camp Champions" are patients at Children's Hospital. Their doctors will be able to track their progress throughout the year, and determine if what they learned at camp leads to improvements in their health.

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