Community Outreach: North Wellington Childhood Obesity Prevention

Professor Harry Cummings with Rural Planning and Development graduate students, April Smith and Aimee Alderman from his EDRD*6690 Programme Evaluation class, are helping the Wellington Dufferin Guelph Public Health Unit in a healthy kids programme in North Wellington. The Health Unit and the community have identified childhood obesity as an issue. An international model, EPODE, ‘Ensemble Prévenons l'Obésité Des Enfants’, (Together Let's Prevent Childhood Obesity), developed in France to deal with the issue is being applied.

In the first phase the schools and grocery stores are being enlisted as community partners. Harry and students are helping with the evaluation of the initiative, planned initially for a three-year period. They will develop an evaluation plan and logic model as part of the first phase. For more information on this initiative please contact Professor Harry Cummings at cummings@uoguelph.ca