Healthy Living

At Meeting Waters YMCA, promoting healthy lifestyles is central to all we do. We support healthy living at the individual, family, organizational and community levels.

Our YMCA Diabetes Prevention Program helps adults at risk of developing diabetes create and sustain lifestyle changes that help them eat healthier and get more physical activity.

Through our Healthy Eating and Physical Activity (HEPA) standards, policies and practices in our youth development and teen leadership programs, we help young people and their families develop healthy habits from a young age. Based on our deep commitment to policies and practices in our Y-ASPIRE and Y Day Camp programs, in 2015 Meeting Waters YMCA was selected as one of just 18 Ys across America to be "HEPA Champions." As a result, we are supporting Ys throughout the US to enhance their efforts to adopt HEPA best practices. In 2017, we are offering HEPA workshops for child care, afterschool and recreation program providers in our Y service area, thanks to support from the Holt Fund.

Our innovative Healthy Family Home initiative engages the whole family of our youth development program participants in the process of eating healthier, getting more physical activity and spending more time as a family.

From 2009-2012, our Healthy Communities Coalition worked with schools, child care centers, youth-serving organizations, businesses, neighborhood associations and entire communities to "make the healthy choice the easy choice where people live, work, learn and play. In just four years, we worked with organizations and communities that touch the lives of over 20,000 people in Windham County... nearly half of the population. In 2012, HCC was selected by Y-USA and their partners at the CDC as one of four "Model Success Stories" for healthy communities initiatives. Lack of local financial support led the coalition to disband in 2012, its legacy lives on through the many Farm-to-School programs; improvements to the walkability and rideability of area communities; and policy supports within child care centers, schools, businesses, youth-serving organizations and recreation departments for healthy eating and physical activity.  

Click on the links to the left for more information about how we support healthy living for all.