The partnership between the ELITE Youth Outreach Program and the Peoria Area Track and Field Club is collaboration designed to provide community youth an opportunity to develop healthy habits while also providing a method for controlling behavior.  Studies show how students who engage in some type of physical activity are less apt to be involved in destructive behaviors, which can contribute to the rising number of juveniles incarcerated in our nation’s prisons.  The spirit of track, for example, allows students time for independent reflection while giving their body physiological benefits.  It is the goal of the ELITE/PATFC partnership to instill tools in our youth empowering them to maintain control over their emotional well-being, using the sport of track as the outlet to vent any lingering frustration the student may have endured. Following are some research highlights as well as the catalyst factors driving the collaboration.

• An exercise program targeting physical and emotional well-being.
• 1 in 5 children in the U.S. are overweight with 15% of students aged 6-19 being seriously overweight
• The percentage of children and adolescents who are defined as overweight has tripled since the early 1970’s
• Researchers found that lowered self-esteem was associated with being overweight in youth as young as 5
• Children with obesity, ages 10 – 13, are reported to have a 70% likelihood of obesity persisting into adult years
• *Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
• 1,333 youth arrests in Peoria in 2008
• 66%  of the offenders were male, 81% African American
• Of those arrests, battery related crimes contributed to 50% of the top 6 arrest offenses