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Salud America!
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research
Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children
Mission FitPossible donates $1500 to Zachary Kolda Elementary School after 2013 5K Run/3KWalk
Source: Sarita Damaraju/ Mission FitPossible
SUCCESS STORY: 2015
Middle Schoolers Develop Health
Program for Elementary Students
In 2010, the predominantly Latino city of Corpus Christi, Texas, was labeled the “fattest city in the nation”
by Men’s Health magazine. A group of local middle school students were not happy about this designation
and wanted to do something about it. After speaking to friends and teachers, the students reached out to
influential community members to develop interest and support for a health program for elementary
students called “Mission FitPossible.” Three years later, the students were high school students and they
would wake up an hour early to bring Mission FitPossible to nearby elementary students.
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EMERGENCE
Awareness: Corpus Christi, Texas (59.7% Latino), was labeled the “fattest city in the nation” in 2010.
Sarita Damaraju and Doug Hagemeister, who were seventh graders at Baker Middle School at the time and
now are juniors at W. B. Ray High School, were shocked.
“I think we had gotten used to seeing obesity,” Hagemeister
said. “Once we realized how serious of a problem it really
was, we began to see it everywhere.”
Damaraju slowly realized she had been witnessing declining
health habits in her peers for many years.
“We knew obesity was an issue, but that title was a wakeup
call,” Damaraju said. “I guess I noticed it before. For example,
kids at school would always try to get out of gym class, and,
although the school cafeteria had strict nutrition standards,
many students ate poor diets at home and brought
unhealthy food to school. But, from a middle schoolers
perspective, I didn’t know if was a serious issue.”
Learn: Damaraju and Hagemeister learned more about
obesity and its causes so that they could come up with a plan
to help their fellow students and their community.
Mission FitPossible team: (left to right) Aneel
Damaraju, Matthew Brehm, Douglas Hagemeister,
Carolyn Fan, Madison Carter, Frances Williamson,
Sarita Damaraju.
Source: Sarita Damaraju/ Mission FitPossible
“We knew that diet and physical activity were important, but we didn’t know the specifics of just how bad
some food was, like how much sugar is in some foods,” Damaraju said. “And we didn’t know how much and
which kind of exercises to do.”
In doing their research, Damaraju and Hagemeister learned that obese children are more likely to face
additional health problems, such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, gall stones, and depression. Studies
show that there is more than a 75% chance that children aged 3−10 will be overweight if both parents are
obese, and that obesity will continue into adulthood.
“You start to develop bad habits at a young age and they stick with you,” Hagemeister said. “And, as adults,
it’s a lot harder to shake off because you’ve had these habits for so long.”
They also learned what the benefits of a healthy lifestyle are. Physical activity and a healthy diet are
associated with decreased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer as well as improved mood and academic
performance.
“The ones who make it a habit to be healthy when they are young are the ones who stay healthy as they get
older,” Damaraju said. “It would be great if all kids grew up to be healthy adults.”
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Frame Issue: Damaraju, Hagemeister, and their friends put a lot of thought into how middle schoolers could
make an impact on childhood obesity in Corpus Christi, Texas. They were kids and they wanted to help
younger kids.
“Before the generation was going to grow up and inherit this title as the fattest city in America, maybe we
could do something about that,” Damaraju said. “We wanted to do something in our community that we could
actually have an impact on, but we were kids, so we didn’t think we could really do that much.”
DEVELOPMENT
Education: Damaraju and
Hagemeister started small, setting up
a booth at a local health fair and
making posters about healthy eating.
The students recognized that the
general public did not seem to know
simple information about health or
basic information about vegetables.
Fun P.E. equipment and activities that the Mission FitPossible team provided for
elementary students.
Source: Sarita Damaraju/ Mission FitPossible
“It seemed strange that people
wouldn’t know very much, but we
found out that a lot of people did not know how to cook a healthy meal,” Damaraju said. “From that
experience we figured out that awareness was a really big issue.”
They wanted to educate the public—specifically children—on the risks of obesity and the benefits of physical
activity and a healthy diet.
Mobilization/Debate: In addition to talking to friends and members of the community, they began talking to
teachers and coaches in the school. They also started reaching out to school board members, businesses,
organizations, and politicians. They made phone calls, sent emails, and visited local businesses and meetings.
“We had never really done anything like this before,” Hagemeister said. “It was hard at the beginning trying to
figure out who to contact and what we should say to them, and how to come across as a legitimate group of
students who are really trying to do something, versus students who would just work on it for a couple
months and then give up. We had to learn how to organize information and how to present to adults who
were professionals.”
Rather than developing a program for adults to pass down to children, they wanted to develop a fun and
informative program to specifically reach kids and teach them how to start healthy habits early in life in order
support healthy habits later in life and prevent obesity.
They branded themselves as Mission FitPossible.
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They envisioned Mission FitPossible as using fun approaches to teach elementary students about healthy
habits that are relevant to them.
“We should teach things that apply to the younger generation versus how to cook a healthy meal, because
obviously they aren’t going to be cooking, their parents are,” Damaraju said. “So we wanted to share
information that was more applicable and easy
to understand for the younger generation.”
They recalled the games and activities that
they enjoyed in elementary and tried to build
on those. They were also inspired by Katy
Perry’s music videos and the Indiana Jones
movies.
“The unique challenge was to make something
to present to kids. We wanted to make it
informative, but we had to keep it light and
fun and accessible,” Hagemeister said.
ENACTMENT
Mission FitPossible team on Kiii News before the 2nd annual 5K
Run/3K Walk.
Source: Kiii News
Activation: The Mayor, the Mayor’s Fitness Council http://www.ccmayorsfitnesscouncil.com/, Corpus Christi
Independent School District (CCISD) superintendent, and school principals and teachers showed interest in
Mission FitPossible.
Additionally, Additionally, the Coastal Bend Wellness Foundation and Spring Cure Foundation partnered up,
too.
Frame policy: Mission FitPossible developed age-appropriate and peer-led health education lesson plans and
challenges that focused on healthy eating and active living. These included nutrition education videos, “Fitness
Jeopardy,” jump rope contests, fitness challenges, and other games to engage elementary students for 10
weeks.
Mission FitPossible made the conscious decision to avoid lectures because they didn’t want to “overload” kids
with information. They wanted to present this vital information to their audiences, their fellow students, in a
fun and entertaining way.
“We developed simple games that kids could play so they could be doing something they enjoy while they
learn from someone close in age, which would encourage them to want to be more fit,” Damaraju said.
Change: Through the newly formed Mayor’s Fitness Council, Joe Adame, the Mayor of Corpus Christi, provided
Mission FitPossible a $500 grant in late 2010.
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Mission FitPossible used the grant money in spring
2011 to start its first program at Robert Wilson
Elementary School (where most Mission FitPossible
leaders had graduated from) with a 10-week, peer-led
health challenge to see which classes could be the
most fit. They bought prizes and incentives for the
contest winners that would promote healthy activity,
like jump ropes, soccer balls, and pedometers.
“We chose that elementary school because we knew
the principle and the PE teachers and we wanted to
have something that was familiar because we were
doing so much new stuff,” Hagemeister said.
IMPLEMENTATION
Mission FitPossible 5K Run/3KWalk
Source: Sarita Damaraju/ Mission FitPossible
Implementation: After the first semester of Mission FitPossible at Wilson Elementary School, the team began
talking to leaders of the CCISD to find other schools that could also use the Mission FitPossible program in
spring 2011.
“[We] got the hang of it and now that we have laid out the foundation,” Hagemeister said. “We started
branching out and splitting and recruiting new members to have more groups or middle schoolers to go into
more elementary schools.”
Today, Mission FitPossible provides its 10-week health challenge in 14 CCISD elementary schools. But they’ve
added more activities over the years to help kids stay healthy. Their games and activities have evolved and
they added an annual 5K run/walk.
After noticing a lack of PE equipment and finding schools only had a $100 budget for such items, Mission
FitPossible leaders wanted to help get more equipment for schools to use throughout the year.
“So we decided to start the 5Ks to raise money to donate to the schools to get new PE equipment and to
repair old stuff,” Damaraju said.
To raise funds for PE equipment (and help kids get active), Mission FitPossible planned a charity 5K. The event
included an additional incentive as Mission FitPossible turned it into a competition between schools, and
advertised that the proceeds would be donated to the schools with the highest student participation.
“We realized that another issue with kids’ physical activity is that PE programs don’t have much equipment,”
Damaraju said. “So, we decided to start the 5K’s to raise money to donate to the schools to get new PE
equipment and to repair old stuff.”
The Mission FitPossible kids began to reach out to people in the community, including local businesses and
coordinated with the local parks and recreation department to book the date and route, and worked with
police to block off the street.
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“It was hard at the beginning,” Hagemeister said. “It is different to organize a run than to organize the
competitions for kids in schools. We have to contact other people and schedule more with other people.”
Although they require more organization, the 5K events are able to reach more community members.
The 5K runs serve three major purposes:
 get the families of elementary school children involved
 get community businesses and organizations involved as sponsors
 reward school PE programs with participation-based donations
Damaraju said: “The parents like the idea of the run where they can do it with their kids versus just the kids
going out and doing it separately, but they are doing it together.”
Equity: Mission FitPossible increases health
equity because it’s free for students and doesn’t
require families to schedule additional activities
or arrange for transportation, which can be
difficult for low-income families with multiple
children.
The 5K events are reasonably priced for Corpus
Christi residents and are free for students.
In the first two years, almost 1,500 people
participated in the 5K events, contributing
$50,000. Almost all of the money that they raise
from the runs is donated to the schools for the
PE programs. In the first two years, Mission
FitPossible donated $37,000 to the schools for
gym equipment in amounts ranging from $200
to $1,500.
Mission FitPossible at an Elementary School
Source: Sarita Damaraju/ Mission FitPossible
Determining how to distribute the donations has a little each year to encourage school participation and to
ensure equitable distribution.
“We decided to make an incentive to get more kids,” Hagemeister said. “At first, we decided on a number and
whichever schools brought that many kids would be entered into the raffle. Then we made it a tier. It has
changed a little from year to year as we perfect it.”
Sustainability: The Mission FitPossible team wants to reach more elementary schools and start providing
peer-led health education lessons and challenges in middle schools.
“We had a much greater impact on students who were younger, because they were more inclined to listen to
people our age,” Damaraju said. “They feel like we are a lot more relatable. They can talk to us and treat us
like kids instead of an adult that is trying to tell them what to do.”
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The Mission FitPossible teams knows that they will graduate high school soon and probably leave Corpus
Christi for college and they want to ensure that the program they leave behind will be passed down for years
to come.
They started branching out by having one or two
members from the core group recruit five or six
students that were just a little bit younger. This
allowed them to reach more schools, and this
gave the younger students more practice and
preparation to continue recruiting and training
younger students after the Mission FitPossible
founders graduate.
“Some of us already graduated and a lot of us are
seniors,” Hagemeister said. “We are trying to
recruit younger members who can carry on the
program and bring it to more schools so that we
can address as many students as possible.”
Mission FitPossible presenting Zachary Kolda Elementary School
with $1,500 donation from the 5K Run/Walk in November 2013.
Source: Sarita Damaraju
Retention of Mission FitPossible members is high. Many of the students they recruit love it and are eager to
return the following year and train new recruits. Eventually, the elementary students that participated in the
program will become middle school students and will be able to teach the program they once participated in.
“We will go to schools to do the contest, and then, a year later, do the run, and then a year later when we are
back in the school the kids are excited to see us and ask us to come back. They are excited to tell us about the
healthy things they eat and the healthy things they do,” Damaraju said.
“Seeing kids actually get excited that we are there and doing a game and eating fruits and vegetables, they get
so into it,” Hagemeister said. “It is validating to see kids get passionate about fruits and vegetables, when that
is something that kids aren’t normally excited about.”
Mission FitPossible has their 4th 5K planned for November 7, 2015.
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Additional Links:
http://mfitpossible.weebly.com/
http://www.ccmayorsfitnesscouncil.com/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3005642/
http://preventobesity.net/inside-track-june-4-e
http://www.cbwellness.org/
http://springcurefoundation.com/
http://echalkweb.ccisd.us/www/CorpusChristi/site/hosting/pd/index.html
http://www.eduzineglobal.com/68/479/saritas-mission-fitpossible
https://www.healthiergeneration.org/about_childhood_obesity/wellness_stories/2014/08/04/958/corpus_ch
risti_students_take_fitness_into_their_own_hands/
This success story was produced by Salud America! with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The stories are intended for educational and informative purposes. References to specific policymakers,
individuals, schools, policies, or companies have been included solely to advance these purposes and do not
constitute an endorsement, sponsorship, or recommendation. Stories are based on and told by real community
members and are the opinions and views of the individuals whose stories are told. Organization and activities
described were not supported by Salud America! or the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and do not
necessarily represent the views of Salud America! or the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children is a national program
of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The program aims to educate researchers, decision-makers,
community leaders, and the public in contributing toward healthier Latino communities and seeking
environmental and policy solutions to the epidemic of Latino childhood obesity. The network is directed by
the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
For more information, visit http://www.salud-america.org.
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