My husband and I, Ramon Rodriguez, created a health and fitness center over 25 years ago and have been in business ever since. Over the years we have found it very difficult to convince adults how important it is to take care of themselves, workout and eat right. Most adults will begin a fitness program and within a couple of weeks they find a million excuses as to why they cannot continue. It is also an uphill battle to get the adults to change their eating habits after they have been set in their ways for such a long time.

As time went on, we began noticing more and more children coming into the fitness center and being put in the nursery while their parents worked out. The kids ranged between the ages of 3-14 and they were constantly asking if they could do aerobics, lift weights, jog, etc. At the time we did not have any formal kids classes and, as a result, the kids were left in the nursery bored, yet full of energy.

Our business began to decline, because we were only catering to adults who were not consistent with their fitness goals. I am an avid watcher of CNN: it literally stays on CNN in my house and at my fitness center. The stories you were doing on childhood obesity really caught my attention and I told my husband that we should immediately implement fitness programs for the kids within our facility. The first thing that we did was to establish a kids fitness afterschool program called “Boys and Girls Fitness USA”. We pick the kids up from school and bring them back to our facility where they do their homework first, eat a healthy snack (turkey on whole wheat, fresh fruit cup, and bottle of water) and then they proceed to do an entire array of fitness activities. They swim, do aerobics, play volleyball, racquetball, football, and basketball, jog on the indoor track, martial arts, lift weights, and strength train. They also have a complete recreation center with 18 holes of putt putt golf, batting cages, game room, small theater area and classrooms (we teach seminars on nutrition and making health food choices and we also have Spanish classes).

My husband is a very animated individual and he wanted to give the kids a character to look up to that would represent what we were trying to instill into their young minds. Our goal is to teach them, at an early age, how important it is to work out and take care of themselves through health, fitness, and nutrition. Once you instill that healthy lifestyle into a child they carry it with them all the way into adulthood. As my husband and I began to brainstorm, we asked ourselves what is it that gets kids attention. Everywhere we look there was one common thread and it was always in the form of a superhero. The amazing part about this was that there is a superhero for everything except fitness. We created our own superhero and his name is “Captain Fitness”. Instead of fighting crime, Captain Fitness fights poor nutrition and unhealthy habits.

We get our message out to the kids in the form of skits. We have characters dressed as junk food ( pizza, hotdog, soda, french fries, bologna) and we call them the bad junk food gang. They go up to the kids and tell them to “eat more hotdogs and pizza, we're good for you, we taste good, and we want to be your friends”. They then go off to the side and start laughing saying “We are going to mess these kids up. We're going to give them high blood pressure, diabetes, make them gain weight, etc.” All of a sudden Captain Fitness charges in and demands that the junk food leave his kids alone and they begin to do battle. Eventually Captain Fitness sends the junk running and screaming in fear. He then brings out some healthy food characters (carrot, tomato, orange, lettuce, turkey, etc) and begins to tell the kids about healthy food choices.

  This is a new program, but it is growing and we are having some wonderful outcomes. During the summer, the program is extended out into an eight week summer fitness camp. Our program is growing by leaps and bounds. Kids are losing weight, self esteem is going up, energy levels are channeled in the right direction, and parents have told us that their child is doing much better in school. I would love to talk to you further about our program. I have a Ed.D. In Education and my husband has a MA in Spanish literature. We are certified personal trainers, and I am a certified nutritionist. I can be reached at any time at (803) 347-8525.