“Fruits and vegetables, highly digestible, we suggest you eat more… Fruits and vegetables, extremely edible, they refresh and restore!” sing the City Songs Kids, a choir for inner-city youth. Healthy snacks are marked with a colorful stick-figure in county buildings. Songs about moving your body play during previews at local movie theaters. Children talk about whole grains during tennis practice. Exercise Your Right to Feel Better Minnesota (EYR) is a movement to empower individuals, families, organizations and communities to take simple steps to eat better and move more.

EYR not only encourages individual change, it is also a key tool for working with decision makers in schools, community groups, healthcare organizations and worksites to create sustainable policies, systems and environment change to make the healthy choice, the easy choice. Key messages of EYR are to “exercise your right” by:
• eating more fruits and vegetables,
• eating more whole grains,
• drinking water,
• eating less fat, and
• being physically active.

EYR was developed by Saint Paul – Ramsey County Public Health (SPRCPH) in response to a need for a unified and ‘sticky’ message to empower our community to seek out and embrace healthy eating and physical activity, promoting health. The EYR theme was designed to engage residents at a grassroots level through community organizations and employers. SPRCPH partnered with two local advertising legends to create a fun, energetic and musical TV show produced by Twin Cities Public Television. The show was nominated for a Regional Emmy Award and provides simple tips and encouragement on healthy eating and physical activity shared by local musicians, experts and residents. A set of free web-based and print materials accompany the show, and constitute the EYR toolkit. Since launching in October 2009, EYR has reached over 300,000 individuals, numerous organizations and diverse communities across Minnesota.

Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS) provides a great example of how EYR has been utilized. In January 2010, SPPS Health and Wellness Leaders, a workgroup comprised of SPPS superintendent, SPRCPH director, a local hospital CEO and health plan administrators, adopted the EYR theme and materials as an initiative to collaboratively promote. In partnership with SPRCPH, they launched the first annual promotion of EYR. Messaging reached all 40,000 SPPS students, all staff and many parents and community members. All 60 schools participated in a district-wide school to school relay, were provided with an EYR toolkit and asked to highlight wellness messages in school newsletters, send home parent information letters, display wellness posters, distribute bookmarks, read health announcements, and show the EYR DVD. Most schools went further, using 5-minute classroom nutrition lessons, holding active family events and participating in the culminating event – the EYR 5K Run/Walk at a local park. Planning for 2011 is underway!