Tour de YES promotes health, wellness, and smoothies

It’s a bright, spring day, late morning, early afternoon-ish. The Houston weather is kinder than normal. 

This weekday carries with it an uncharacteristic lack of humidity and temperatures, which can be schizophrenic this time of year (burning hot or “freezing” cold), that are mild—at least for the moment.

The students at the YES Prep North Central Secondary campus scurry about, moving from class to class. But most often, they see four stationary bikes set up right outside the building housing the school’s cafeteria. With the bikes, a team of people is working hard, but casually, almost playfully, in obvious preparation for something.

“What’s that?” was the question that could be heard by students asking each other. Every blue moon, one brave teenage soul approached the adults dressed in matching t-shirts. Surrounding the bikes. 

The courageous students ask, “What’s this? What’s happening?” And a kind team member goes into an explanation without going too deep into the reasoning behind their initiative—Tour de YES.

What is Tour de YES?

Tour de YES, a program birthed by YES Prep’s Child Nutrition Operations Department, was developed to creatively address two issues dogging youth. Black and Brown youth especially, nationwide, and specifically in Texas, have terrible dietary and physical wellness realities.

“We want to incorporate physical activity with nutrition,” said Maria Carlos, manager of YES Prep’s child nutrition operations department. “We have blender bikes, kind of like the Tour de France. A blender bike is a stationary bike that has a blender on it that blends smoothies as students ride the bikes.”

Carlos shared that students can choose from multiple smoothie flavors made with fresh fruits and/or vegetables, pre-packaged for students by YES Prep child nutrition team members.

Red Finish Fuel contains strawberries, a strawberry frozen cup, raspberries, cranapple juice, and an apple. Blue Scholar Success uses bananas, yogurt, blackberries, and blueberries. And Tour de YES’s Green Success Boost employs coconut water, apple juice, pineapples, mango, and spinach.

For Georgia Georgacopulos, the child nutrition specialist at the YES Prep North Central Secondary campus, Green Boost Success is her favorite.

“I really like spinach. It’s a great source of iron,” said Georgacopulos. “And for people who are physically active and students who are still in a growth period, it’s very important for them to enjoy these kinds of nutrients.

“I also like bananas and pineapples and the other ingredients that it has.”

“Students are able to choose which smoothie they would want,” said Carlos. “They put the ingredients in the blender, then get on the bike and ride. Depending on how chunky or how smooth they want it, they can ride faster and longer. The blender just blends it up.

“And what better way to promote physical activity with nutrition than with these blender bikes? Students are getting to be active, see what they’re making, and then try something new.”

Generally, the campuses choose a specific number of students to participate when Tour de YES visits. Students are pre-checked for allergies to ensure they won’t have a negative reaction to the fruits and vegetables in the smoothies.

Why needed

And according to state and federal data on youth wellness, Tour de YES makes sense.

The stats on young people’s eating habits are scary bad. Over 67% of U.S. children (ages 12-19) consume poor-quality diets, with low nutrient intake and high sodium. In Texas, one in four school-aged children is considered obese. Texas children struggle with nutrition, as over 1.8 million don’t eat any vegetables at all. Additionally, 1.2 million don’t eat fruit on a given school day, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“Students are able to choose which smoothie they would want. They put the ingredients in the blender, then get on the bike and ride.”

Maria Carlos

The numbers on these young people’s physical activity aren’t much better. In the Lone Star State, only 23% of school-aged children achieve the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity (7 hours per week, or 420 minutes). On average, Texas youth get in only 4.3 days’ worth (258 minutes) of physical activity on any given week.

Nationally, youth activity levels are similarly low, with only 20-28% meeting daily guidelines, resulting in poor cardiovascular health and rising sedentary behaviors. Roughly 75% of children are not meeting the lowest level of physical activity guidelines, per the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health.

Tour de YES organizers believe that when students are exposed to healthy, good-tasting smoothies produced by their bike-riding efforts, they will be inspired to improve their daily eating and physical activity habits.

“At first, the kids are a little hesitant because, you know, it’s something new,” shared Carlos, who left her position at the legendary YES Prep North Forest campus to take on her current role. “But then once they see all their friends trying it, then they really get into it, and they want to blend up their smoothie.”

Impact

Carlos recalls one of the first students to participate in Tour de YES, who had never tried spinach.

“He got one of the smoothies that had spinach in it, and he asked for the recipe because he wanted to make it at home,” she recalled. “We think that everybody knows what spinach is, but there are people who don’t.”

Carlos said that student’s experience exemplifies what Tour de YES seeks to accomplish.

“Those are the connections we want to make. And then also, of course, inspiring students to incorporate physical activity and realize they can go bicycling for 10 minutes around their neighborhood, and then make themselves a smoothie and power up,” added Carlos.

How it started

The initiative started in December 2025 at the YES Prep Southwest Secondary campus. Secondary campuses are the initial focus, as the bikes are too big for elementary school students (known in the YES Prep universe as “the littles”). But the hope is to get smaller bikes in the future to expand the campuses that Tour de YES can serve.

Four YES Prep secondary campuses were served this school year. Next year, the rest of YES Prep’s secondary campuses will get a visit from Tour de YES.

Tour de YES is funded through the National School Lunch Program, with the expectation that funded schools will develop and implement a wellness program. Tour de YES is the program developed by YES Prep’s Child Nutrition Operations Department in collaboration with YES Prep campuses.

How its going

Fabian, one of the Tour de Hood participants at YES Prep North Central Secondary, has bought into the Tour de YES experience.

“I feel like this Tour is really nice. It teaches kids how doing physical work can get you prizes, and healthy prizes especially,” said Fabian, who really enjoyed his Red Finish Fuel smoothie.

But truth be told, the teachers who stopped by and participated in the Tour seemed to have as much fun, if not more, than the students. That includes teacher Eric Estelle, YES Prep North Central’s principal, Lilian Macias, and others.