Northeast Missouri has a high prevalence of heart disease and obesity/overweight among its adult population, sadly, for those adults it will be very difficult for most of them to improve their overall health and their heart health in particular. There are many risk factors for heart disease such as being overweight, poor diet and exercise, diabetes, and high blood pressure. According to MICA and OSEDA data Missouri has a 63% rate of overweight/obese adults in its population which has led to heart disease and heart related illnesses to surpass cancer as the number one cause of death and hospitalization in Missouri. If you couple that with the 25% self-reported physical inactivity numbers, the 20% high blood pressure numbers, and the 74% of adults who claim they don’t get enough fruits or vegetables a day the problem is rapidly becoming clear. These numbers are considered under reported and the actual numbers may be much higher. If Missouri is going to lower its prevalence of heart disease and overweight adults then the education and training must start at a very young age in order to create adults with a lifelong commitment to fitness and health. These children don’t have to all grow up to be athletes, they just need to be athletically inclined enough that they stay in shape throughout their lives and lower their chances of getting heart disease and pass on those habits to their children. Healthy children with good eating and exercise habits grow up to become healthy adults who have less health issues and who are more productive members of society that miss less days of work and visit the hospital less than those who are unhealthy. 

What NEMO RAAWKS is trying to accomplish is to take young children between the ages of three to ten and instruct them in correct nutrition, fitness, and how to integrate those two into their daily lives. It’s important to start training the children young so that the lessons can sink in and they can start practicing these lessons on a daily basis so it becomes a habit they will keep throughout their lives. NEMO RAAWKS is committed to doing this by introducing better nutritional education in schools and also revamping physical education in school and at home to improve the students overall fitness and health. The fitness model will consist of developing correct fundamental movement techniques that the students can then build off of throughout their lives. Techniques such as correct walking and running form, crawling, lifting, carrying, throwing, catching, balancing, jumping, climbing, and swimming can all be built upon in a fun and engaging way. As adults we think that all of these are very simple tasks to do, and they are, but only because we’ve been doing them all our lives and have developed the muscle memory to do them easily. However, many children and adults have learned incorrectly how to execute these movements and can be injured as a result. The model that these students will be learning from is called MovNat, which is all about teaching fundamental movement techniques.

You can click on this link to see a sample of what MovNat teaches:
MovNat


Imagine if children learned these movements in school and how much more coordinated and fit they would be as adults.


References

(2013, September 16). In Medline Plus. Retrieved September 17, 2013, from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/heartdiseasesprevention.html

(2011, January 12). In Mayo Clinic. Retrieved September 17, 2013, from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/heart-disease-prevention/WO00041