Healthy habits matter.

That’s the message Landon Lopez and a group of about 25 students at Hennessey High School are working to promote through their involvement with Youth Action for Health Leadership.

A senior at HHS, Lopez has been involved with YAHL for three years and currently serves as a co-leader for the local group.

YAHL is a Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET)-funded statewide youth-led initiative that partners with schools and organizations to make a meaningful and measurable impact on Oklahoma by promoting healthy behaviors.

The organization sponsors two campaigns fostering healthy lifestyles among students - Elevate Student Health and CounterAct Tobacco.

“Our mission is to promote a healthy Oklahoma that is free from the harmful effects of tobacco addiction, poor nutrition and obesity,” Lopez said.

Elevate Student Health works to improve school wellness policies and helps individual school districts adopt a comprehensive policy to improve overall student health, Lopez added.

With students consuming as much as 50 percent of their daily calories at school, Lopez said it’s important to have healthy and nutritious meals, but also to provide necessary accommodations for students who have special dietary needs.

“Sometimes school food is the only time that some students get to eat and it’s so important to have a healthy meal and to provide the accommodations they need,” Lopez added.

Members of the group organize events to educate students about healthy habits and distribute surveys encouraging them to provide their input about healthy options available at HHS.

Once the data is collected the group works with school administrators and the local school board to come up with ways to initiate or improve comprehensive wellness policies, ensuring healthier lives for students.

Elevate (Student Health) has a comprehensive policy model that makes it easy for schools to integrate directly into their existing policy, Lopez said.

Beyond the focus of providing nutritional meals at school, Lopez said the group also strives to increase physical activity among students and ensure access to clean drinking water.

Many healthy initiatives have already been implerecently- mented at HHS, Lopez said, with more fruits and vegetables available at lunch, a water fountain specially designed for students to fill their water bottles and the administration’s commitment to making sure water fountain filters are replaced monthly.

Reflecting on why he became involved with YAHL, Lopez said his own health played a role as well as his desire to help others develop healthy habits.

“I had a lot of health issues in my life and I wanted to change myself and to help other people change themselves, because I know how hard it is to change,” Lopez said.

“Elevate Student Health has helped me to under-stand the importance of moving at least 45 minutes of the day, exercising and eating healthy.

“I want to show other students that it doesn’t need to be hard.”

Additionally, Lopez said his hope is to get younger children to realize and adopt those healthy patterns so they will carry over into adulthood and prevent future health problems in their adult life.

Through the Counter-Act Tobacco campaign, Lopez said members of the group also have the opportunity to stress the dangers of tobacco to students and expose how tobacco companies target youth with their marketing campaigns.

Lopez is the son of Jorge and Abigail Lopez and is also involved in band and a member of FCCLA, in which he serves as secretary.

With his passion to “elevate student health,” Lopez said he hopes more students will become active in promoting healthy choices and advocating for comprehensive wellness policies in the school.

“My future vision for the school is for students to be involved in more organizations like YAHL, so they can help younger generations grow and understand the importance of being healthy and of having a healthy life,” Lopez said.

It’s important to develop healthy habits at an early age, which will lead to a better life, he added.

“Every student deserves to live a healthy life and that starts at school,” Lopez said.