New Jersey Partnership for Healthy Kids (NJPHK) presented its Healthy Kids Champion award to 10-year old Hamilton resident Joshua Pantoja Jr. during the Building a Culture of Health in New Jersey: Advancing the Population Agenda Conference on Nov. 30.
The Healthy Kids Champion award is presented to outstanding leaders for their commitment and contributions in New Jersey.
As the youngest recipient, the award acknowledges Pantoja’s commitment to helping his family and friends make healthier choices. Last year, Pantoja attended NJPHK’s Healthy Family Weekend Retreat at the YMCA Frost Valley where he participated in healthy cooking classes. The cooking class inspired Pantoja to help his family and friends make healthier choices, as well as served as the catalyst for him to become a contestant on the Food Network’s Chopped Junior program.
Pantoja regularly cooks healthy meals for his family, friends and classmates. He also created a container garden where he planted watermelon, jalapeno peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes.
“Joshua is an inspiration and embodies the mission of NJPHK to reduce childhood obesity by making the healthy choice the easy choice,“ Darrin Anderson, deputy director of NJPHK, said. “It is an honor to present this award to Joshua who, at such a young age, is already making such a positive impact on his family and overall community.”
Over the past five years, NJPHK—a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—and its community partners have made significant strides in implementing more than 200 environmental and policy changes to increase access to physical activity and healthy eating. These changes include: assisting with the development of school wellness policies, renovating playgrounds, installing bike lanes, partnering with more than 160 local corner stores to include healthier product offerings, launching healthy farmer’s markets in combination with health screenings, and hosting healthy family weekends for more than 100 families across the state.
