At The Children’s Center locations around Western Tidewater, including those in Suffolk, a program encouraging healthy habits among Head Start and Early Head Start children is seeing results.

Last April and May, the center’s board of directors and its governing council approved a physical activity policy designed to ensure teachers are planning structured and unstructured physical activities every day.

For example, daily, toddlers require at least 15 minutes of structured activity and an hour of unstructured activity. Children under 2 get no “screen time.”

For older children, staff must provide at least half an hour of structured activity over the course of a day and an hour of unstructured activity.

Sharon Jones, its child care coordinator, said the Head Start Center on Davis Boulevard in Suffolk already had a such policy in place for preschoolers in Head Start, but it has been all new for toddlers in the early program.

“We knew our young babies had to be moving,” Jones said.

A typical day under the policy starts with “music and movement” right after breakfast, she said.

Then, with 172 students at her site, there are two schedules for outside play between 10 and 11 a.m. “They can’t all go out at the same time,” Jones said.

During that time, activities like hula-hoops, tricycles, relay races, running, climbing and crawling keep their heart rates up, she said. One activity has to be teacher-guided.

“From my office in Franklin you can see out to the playground, and those kids out there for about 30 minutes are just going and going,” said Jeff Zeigler, the center’s community relations coordinator. “Man, I could use some of that energy.”

Helping encourage healthy habits is equipment purchased with a $500 grant from Nemours, a health system for children, and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The money was used to purchase collapsible tunnels for the children to crawl through. The beauty of the tunnels, according to Jones, is they can be brought inside when it rains.

In the Davis Boulevard location’s multi-purpose room Tuesday, Head Start students emerged from the end of the tunnel and raced back for another turn.

“It was easy to implement, I think, because there has been so much information put out regarding obesity and problems that we are having with our children,” Judee Delancy, the lead teacher for Head Start, said of the policy.

Healthy eating is also part of the shift that’s been under way at The Children’s Center, Jones said. Fresh fruit and vegetables are taking the place of processed foods for meals and snacks.

“Our juices are 100-percent juice — they are not processed,” she said.

Teachers and other staff are also jumping on board, she said. At the Davis Boulevard location, one teacher who is also a Zumba instructor regularly leads a group exercise session prior to meetings, she added.

“We are doing the water challenge, trying to drink 100 ounces of water a day,” Jones said. “We are fighting each other to the bathroom.”