My name is Kaylee Davis and I am a senior at Marlow High School. I am seventeen years old and just finished up my first year with YAHL. Through YAHL’s Elevate Student Health campaign, I recently participated in Swap Up Day. In doing so, it has allowed me to work with a fellow YAHL member Tessa Spivey and meet various people who attend and work at my school. 

      My school held the Swap Up event in March during YAHL’s Days of Action. We held this event in the main building of our school, where we set up a table to welcome people going to and returning from lunch. We set up a stand called the “Swap Up Café.” At the café, visiting students ordered a snack or beverage based on how they wanted to feel, which is similar to Elevate Student Health’s main goal. Elevate Student Health and Swap Up proved to be similar, both having goals of improving student health through better eating and drinking habits. 

     The Swap Up Café showed the importance of pushing for Elevate Student Health’s goals of school wellness policies because of the effects that they have on people’s health and mood. Elevate Student Health works with schools to try to pass new policies that focus on Swap Up Day, and healthy eating, as well as allow students to participate in the suggested sixty minutes of exercise during the school day. If these changes are made earlier in life, the habits will be easier to keep into adulthood. All of these changes will lead to a healthier and happier Oklahoma.

-Kaylee Davis, Marlow High School