Youth Wellness Initiative

I’m so excited to announce this new program that Pure and Simple Fitness has created! Pure and Simple Fitness has been funded by Hamilton County to help with the execution of a new program designed to bring fun fitness, mindful movement, and nutrition guidance and meals to the youth within our community. I’d like to introduce to you the Youth Wellness Initiative. 🎉

Did you know that childhood obesity is on the rise? And African American youth are at higher numbers than their White or Asian counterparts. According to CDC, 24.8% of Black youth are obese, with only 9% of Asians being obese.

Obesity can lead to other health issues such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and other conditions. All of which is preventable (and reversible)! We have to do something about these numbers and the Youth Wellness Initiative is striving to do just that! You can read more about effects of childhood obesity here.

Since launching this initiative, we have been able to provide several youth groups within the Cincinnati area with fitness equipment to have and use at their leisure. We have also been able to provide fun fitness and mindful movement sessions with different youth groups to help keep them active and mobile and practice relaxation and recovery.

What We’ve Been Up to So Far

During the basketball season, I was fortunate enough to work with the Girl’s Princeton High School Basketball team. I led the young ladies with recovery yoga sessions throughout the basketball season as a way to rest, relax, and recover from those demanding basketball games. At the end of the basketball season, I was able to gift each player with their own yoga mats to take their recovery yoga practice home!

I also had the lovely opportunity to work with the Winton Hills Cincinnati Recreation Commission. Here, I was able to work with the younger youth group and the older youth group separately. The younger group loved choosing yoga poses from a deck of cards full of yoga poses. Whichever number they landed on, we would recreate the pose ourselves. They absolutely loved the Bow Pose. Check them out below!

Our older youth enjoyed the same activity. I went around the room giving each youth a chance to choose a number from the deck of cards and the corresponding pose with that number is what we would recreate. They moaned and groaned at the start, but eventually became actively engaged until the end! Their favorite pose was the Shoulder Stand and the Bridge.

We have also had the opportunity to work with Cincinnati Public Schools! I provided a fun obstacle course for grades 4th-12th grade. The younger kids are always more receptive to seeing me with either a mat or fitness gear. The 4-6th graders came right into the gym, gave me the weird eyes but had a blast with the obstacle course. Some of the students going through the course several times! The older kids were apprehensive, but engaged as well and went through the course a few times too! It was a lot of laughter, high energy, and focus on fitness!

I’m so incredibly thrilled for what this program will do for the well-being of our community. We have some more fun-filled events coming up and I plan to keep you all updated!

If you know of any youth groups that could benefit from this program please feel free to reach out via email at [email protected] Please add “Youth Wellness Initiative” in the subject line so the email doesn’t get lost. 🙏🏾

Thank you so much, and please stay tuned as Pure and Simple Fitness continues to make self-care and wellness affordable and accessible within our community! Stay tuned! 💖

🌟Be Intentional

Coach Ash