Kids' Sports for Life(Final)
Sports celebrities boost healthIt's game night in Washington, D.C., and the Wizards-the U.S. capital city's home basketball team-is set to play the San Antonio Spurs. As the cheerleaders emerge, the fans settle into their seats, nearly filling the arena. A giant screen overhanging the court flashes a message: "When you choose violence, everyone loses." Throughout the game, public service announcements (PSAs) about youth violence appear on the overhead screen and on a giant digital band circling the inside of the arena. The evening is one of a series of "health awareness game nights" sponsored by the Washington Wizards and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in a partnership to promote healthy lifestyles to basketball fans. PSAs filmed for each game night feature key Wizards players and the team's coach promoting messages including "youth violence solves nothing," "every mother and child counts," and "healthy environments for children." In the same way that they make great promoters of consumer products, sports celebrities can be powerful spokespersons for health. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Brazilian soccer stars Pelé and Ronaldo and Colombia's popular Formula-One racer Juan Pablo Montoya are among those who have lent their voices to PAHO public health campaigns. Other celebrities who are promoting healthy lifestyles through sports include Patricia Janiot, senior anchor for CNN Spanish. Her Little Colombians foundation has a pilot community program that promotes positive values and healthy lifestyles in at-risk children. The objective is to raise self-esteem and help children grow into healthy youths and adults. Recognizing the value of sports for human health and development, the United Nations declared 2005 the International Year of Sport and Physical Education. World tennis champion Roger Federer of Switzerland was named U.N. spokesperson for the year and is promoting sports as a tool for bridging cultural and ethnic divisions and for improving quality of life for people around the world. "Sport can play a role in improving the lives of whole communities," says U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "I am convinced that the time is right to build on that understanding, to encourage governments, development agencies and communities to think how sport can be included more systematically in the plans to help children, particularly those living in the midst of poverty, disease and conflict."
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