Earlier this week, Bills offensive lineman Mike Jasper teamed up with Tops Friendly Markets and visited Eggert Elementary in Orchard Park, NY. Together, they presented the importance of smart and healthy eating choices with the help of the NuVal™ Nutritional Scoring System to the young students.
NuVal is a nutritional points system that gives every food a value from one to 100. The higher the score the better the food is for you. It works well with schools because it's a great correlation with test scores.
"It was such a great event," said Jasper, who also got the kids up and moving with some exercise contests. "I hope that the students listened to what I had to say and can apply it to their lives. Eating healthy and exercising really makes it all the difference. There's so many ways to go out and exercise – especially with the weather we've been having in Buffalo! From what I understand 75 degrees in March is unreal!"
"We are here at Eggert Road elementary because physical education teacher Sandy Beers won a contest that Tops Markets hosted," said Tops Community Outreach Coordinator Lindsey Zaffarano. "It was a scavenger hunt where they had to go into Tops stores and look at things with NuVal numbers and answer some questions about the Bills. Because she won, they won an appearance from a Bills player and an assembly with the NuVal presentation."
"When you live a healthy lifestyle it makes it so much easier to get out of bed in the morning and you feel better," said Jasper. "I just hope that I could have helped at least one student. I understand that sometimes students can hear the same thing from their teachers and an NFL Player and their reaction is totally different so it's important for me and my teammates to be out in the community stressing the importance of healthy living.
"Mike Jasper was great – the kids loved him," said Zaffarano. "He brought a lot of good energy and a lot of good insights on how he lost his weight."
"I want to give a big shout out to Rachel at Eggert Elementary for beating out all of the boys in the push-up contest," said Jasper. "She rocked it!"
