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Dunking their way to a healthier lifestyle

It was a slam-dunk for local kids learning about healthy habits.
Dunkfordiabetesweb
Morris Peterson (right) demonstrates a trick for nine-year-old Adrianna Kozak during the Bonnyville Boys and Girls Club wrap-up party.

It was a slam-dunk for local kids learning about healthy habits.

After a successful six-week program, the Bonnyville Boys and Girls Club hosted Sun Life Financial's Dunk for Diabetes wrap-up party at Bonnyville Centralized High School (BCHS) on Sunday, Dec. 2.

"It was great. We had such a great response (to the program)," expressed executive director for the local Boys and Girls Club, Patti Cowden. “We had 40-plus kids per week that participated, and we did all kinds of (activities) with them."

Along with the Boys and Girls Club and Sun Life, NBA Canada and the Toronto Raptors joined together to create an educational program to teach kids the importance of a healthy lifestyle and raise awareness about diabetes.

The program has Boys and Girls Clubs across the country participate in weekly challenges where they gain points based on activity levels and eating habits. At the end of six-weeks, the groups with the most had the honour of hosting an NBA athlete.

Joshua Orozco, 9, learned about the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle through the program, and was excited to see what NBA player would be making a trip to Bonnyville.

Former Toronto Raptor Morris Peterson was this year's Dunk for Diabetes special guest.

"We're teaching awareness of having a healthy lifestyle, and starting early because we know how serious diabetes is. With our generation of kids, it's important for them to know what foods to eat," detailed Peterson.

Throughout the event, attendees participated in basketball clinics along with nutritional sessions that taught them which foods to avoid to be healthier.

"We want to teach them that they can have good food, and not have to eat candy bars and snacks all the time. We want to teach them to take care of their bodies, and just to be aware," expressed Peterson.

Director of philanthropy, sponsorship, and global marketing for Sun Life, Karine Zanier, noted the initiative has been very successful since they started offering it to Boys and Girls Clubs across Canada.

"We do some testing with the kids in week one and week six, to ask them myths and facts-based questions on being healthy and active, and the difference between type one and type two diabetes," she explained. "Week six, we go back and ask them the same questions, because everything is healthy challenges that are based on the basketball theme... But, what we find most interesting, is the kids are learning and we're teaching them a lot about type two diabetes prevention."

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