GardenFit program sprouts to tackle children?s summer weight gain

You can plant broccoli. You don?t have to like it. Quincy Cage, a Sherman Middle School sixth-grader, has enjoyed UW-Madison?s GardenFit program, fighting off mosquitoes and unwanted extra pounds that pile on over a lazy summer, learning how to grow and cook good food, getting off the couch. Hoeing and harvesting at the East High School Youth Farm in Kennedy Park, he?s discovered he likes purple onions and other things he?s helped grow. Sarah Jacquart, a nutritional sciences graduate student who runs the program, said the approximately dozen middle school participants aren?t trying to lose weight. ?We?re trying to prevent that rapid three- or six-pound weight gain that others have seen,? Jacquart said.