Triple Play

In order to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens, Boys & Girls Clubs focus on three priority outcome areas: Academic Success, Healthy Lifestyles, and Good Character and Citizenship.

Triple Play is a suite of three Targeted Programs that work together to promote Healthy Lifestyles. The three programs were intentionally written to build the skills, attitudes, knowledge and behaviors essential to an overall healthy lifestyle. Healthy eating, physical activity and relationship building are addressed in a suite of three easy-to-use resources. Each component is a complete curriculum; together, they help youth learn to sustain the health of the mind, the body and the soul.

Healthy Habits

Healthy Habits focuses on helping youth make healthy eating choices. The program consists of 14 progressive, interactive, practical activities that develop a young person’s skill, confidence and motivation to make healthy nutrition choices throughout life.

The Sports and Recreation Core Program Area

Programs in this area promote physical health by providing low-risk settings for members to explore moving their bodies and eating healthy foods. These playful experiences build movement and nutrition skills. Members develop positive attitudes toward physical activity and healthy eating to support a lifetime of healthy decisions. Targeted Programs and High-Yield Activities in the Sports and Recreation Core Program Area are linked to the Healthy Lifestyles priority outcome area.

Sports and Recreation Outcome Statement

Youth have the ability, confidence, and motivation to lead physically active lifestyles and adopt healthful eating patterns.

Social-emotional skills are essential for youth to build healthy relationships with themselves and others, recognize and manage emotions, and solve problems.

Healthy Habits was designed to promote:

The Youth Development Professional’s Role in Healthy Lifestyles

Positive youth development is an intentional approach that engages youth within their communities, schools, organizations, peer groups, and families in a manner that is productive and constructive; recognizes, uses and enhances young people’s strengths; and promotes positive outcomes for young people by providing opportunities, fostering positive relationships, and furnishing the support needed to build on their leadership strengths.

Youth development practices that promote physical activity and healthy eating are key to the effectiveness of Sports and Recreation programs. Sports and Recreation programs, when facilitated with high-quality youth development practice, help youth develop the skills, confidence, and motivation needed to maintain a healthy eating pattern and a physically active life.

Youth development professionals can help all youth live healthier lifestyles with the following practices:

• Ask open-ended, relevant and challenging questions about health decisions.
• Aim to provide youth with the information necessary to make healthy decisions without explicitly labeling choices as “good” or “bad.”
• Provide recognition when youth make choices that support their own health and/or the health of others.
• Eat with youth during snacks and meals.
• Share personal health and nutrition challenges, and model appropriate and safe ways to address personal difficulties.
• Regularly expose youth to new foods; try new foods alongside youth.

Youth development professionals can provide additional support to youth by involving families in healthy eating:

• Provide resources to link families to community programs such as food pantries, nutrition education classes, cooking programs, etc.
• Provide opportunities for family members to participate in nutrition programming.
• Give members opportunities to talk about foods that are meaningful to them, their families and their cultures.

Positive Youth Development Supports Character and Social-Emotional Development

All Boys & Girls Club programs offer opportunities for staff to model, recognize, reinforce and reflect on character development. Positive youth development provides direction for how you interact with, engage and model behavior for youth. You get to shape the lives of young people every day. As a result, you set the expectations and show youth what essential character traits – caring, citizenship, fairness, respect, responsibility and trustworthiness – mean and how they look. These character traits come to life when youth practice social- emotional skills like teamwork, conflict management and emotional regulation. Young people use skills to lead themselves and others, as well as demonstrate positive attributes in citizenship, like community engagement and voting.

Youth can start to build character using “caught and taught” approaches. Youth “catch” social-emotional skills when they observe youth development professionals modeling them, and when they interact with peers. Youth can also be “taught” skills to build good character when the skills are explicitly introduced and practiced through program sessions and activities. Use this formula to understand how character develops over time:

Staff Model Good Character + Youth Practice Skills Regularly = Character Development

Youth development professionals facilitating Healthy Habits can model good character in the way they support all youth, offer feedback rather than criticism, and encourage honesty and responsibility.

To build character traits, include many opportunities for youth to practice the social-emotional skills embedded in Healthy Habits. These include skills related to:

• How youth feel about themselves
• Their relationships with others
• Their ability to regulate emotions
• Their ability to solve problems

When Character Development is present:

• Youth development professionals model and youth practice skills that display respect, fairness, trustworthiness, responsibility, caring and citizenship
• Youth successfully get along well with others
• Youth are better able to control their emotions and solve problems

When Character Development is absent:

• Youth do not feel a sense of belonging at the Club
• Youth lack skills that foster positive peer relationships
• Youth lack self-control and act out in frustration

For more information, visit BGCA.net and search for "Program Basics BLUEprint." See “Practicing Social-Emotional Skills to Achieve Character Development” in the BLUEprint. It will show you the specific social-emotional skills young people should practice to demonstrate positive behaviors indicative of the six essential character traits.

Practice Positive Youth Development to Create Inclusive Clubs

Inclusion is a core component to build a safe, positive environment in your Clubs. In order to fulfill our mission, Clubs must create safe, positive, and inclusive environments for all youth and teens – including every race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, ability, socio-economic status and religion. By creating inclusive environments at our Club, we improve the overall experience for all young people. When staff use positive youth development practices, they help ensure all youth:

• Feel represented
• Have a sense of belonging
• Can meaningfully participate in programming

As you implement Healthy Habits, consider strategies that help youth feel affirmed, safe and engaged with Club experiences. To view and download more information on building and sustaining an inclusive environment, visit BGCA.net and search for "Program Basics BLUEprint."

How to Use this Resource

Healthy Habits was carefully designed to provide comprehensive support for your Club’s nutrition or healthy eating program. The program is organized into 14 sessions that guide members of all ages through three topic areas: defining health, applying nutritional information, and influencing the environment. Sessions are designed to be completed sequentially. You will have the most success if you implement Healthy Habits in its entirety, following the recommended order of sessions with a cohort of youth who remain together for the duration of the program. See the Healthy Habits Overview following for session content and skills.

Each session in Healthy Habits includes a suggested snack. These snack suggestions complement the session content so members can immediately apply what they’re learning. Of course, these snacks are suggestions – member input can and should guide the snacks that are served in all areas of the Club. However, it is important that any snack served as part of Healthy Habits is consistent with the overall message of the program. When members are taught about healthy eating, but not provided healthy snacks, they are not set up for success.

This guide is available on BGCA.net. Clubs can download complimentary copies of most national programs and resources.

Healthy Habits Overview

Ages 13-18

Recommended Resources

BGCA offers a range of developmentally appropriate Sports and Recreation programs to serve youth of all age groups.

Other resources include Taking a Club-Wide Approach to Healthy Eating: A Resource Guide for Staff and Leadership. Find these titles using the search bar on BGCA.net.