Fitness and health department students have been hard at work in co-operation with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario on a project helping overweight children and their families.

The students have been working with the CHEO Obesity Clinic to help families find a better way to have an active lifestyle. Families have been invited to attend a forum at CHEO on Thursday, Feb. 8.

“We’re in the developmental stages right now,” said Gordon Wilcox, professor and coordinator of the fitness and health promotion program. “The project should be completed near the end of April.”

According to Wilcox, there will be a discussion and presentation by obesity researchers at the forum. Questions will be answered about lifestyle choices, eating habits and activity habits in order to get a better understanding of what resources may help the families adopt healthier lifestyle choices.

The students involved with the program spent last semester doing research in their classes and have spent this semester formulating a toolkit which contains resources for the families to use. This toolkit will be given to the families at the forum. Included in the toolkit are resources for healthy eating, exercise, stress relief, activity and nutrition log sheets, amongst others.

“The main goal is to find out what will work for them [the families],” said student Tijiana Roberts.

Student Ryan Baker said it has been a very busy time for them.

“We’re creating everything from scratch,” he said.

The project is mandatory as the students need it to graduate. They have been working on it on top of going to classes and doing assigned class work.