Dear Dan, My name is Brendan Ridings. Recently my mother, Marsha Ridings, contacted you in regards to speaking at New Lenox Schools. I currently work at Cardinal Ftiness near Joliet, IL. The owner and myself are developing a plan for a facility connected to our gym that would be an exercise building just for kids. All of the equipment will be sized just for kids, programs designed specifically to get kids moving and have fun all under the guidance of health and fitness professionals. We want this to be free to any child and there is no obligation for the parents to be members at our gym. This is a basic summary of our plan. I am working on a writing a grant to fund this project, using stats from children to help. I just graduated college with a dietetics degree and I want to help kids. I am emailing you today because I just wanted to see if there is any suggestion or information you may be able to provide. I am contacting local professors to try to get this program studied if in fact it gets up and running so there is data on our intervention program. I feel it will be very successful, we ran some demo kids classes for 2-8 year olds and 95% of kids in our day care participated and enjoyed it. When we charged money for that same class only 2 signed up. Any info you can give would be great! thank you so much for your time. Yours in Health, Brendan Ridings

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It is great to see such initiatives. Brendan. I'm sure it could provide a useful outlet for many children. On the other hand, by itself it will not have a major impact on weight loss for obese young people. That takes a more comprehensive family based approach. If you'd like to discuss this further, please call our office: 312-245-3120. Thanks, Dan