Childhood obesity (and it related issues) is costing American taxpayers over $100 BILLION dollars A YEAR.

But of course, it is more than the money. It’s about our children being happy and healthy. It’s about giving them a chance to grow up without disease like diabetes and heart disease.

• It starts with helping kids learn about the importance of healthy eating.
• It also starts with patience and a positive approach as a family.
• It starts with changing your family’s eating patterns, one goal at a time.

Resources:

Free Printable Healthy Eating Goals

Free Printable Goal Tracking Sheets

Family – Healthy Eating Tips Sheets

For Kids: Play Free Healthy Nutrition Game Learn about healthy foods choices and the importance of daily activity- games and tools to help children develop healthy habits.

Nourish Interactive – The Fun Way to Learn About Nutrition!

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, made the opening remarks at the conference, “Weight of the Nation”.  She stated

“the childhood obesity epidemic so severe in our country that this generation of kids could be the first in more than 200 years to live shorter lives than their parents“

 I remember the first time I heard this claim in 2005 by our Surgeon General.  I had to reread the article.  With all our technology, with all our advances in medicine, as a nurse I could not believe this was true.  As a mother, I was scared and worried about my children and my children’s children.  That was the shocking statistic that made me start NourishInteractive.com.

Here it is 2009, and I am reading the same prediction.  This time I am not dumbfounded, this time I am not shocked.  This time I am energized to continue to find ways to reach out to children and make healthy eating a fun topic they enjoy learning about.

I know that early education (before kids have formed their habits) is one of the most important strategies in fighting childhood obesity long term. I also know that most kids, regardless of their weight don’t eat a balanced diet; they are missing many nutrients.  This can effect their learning ability and long term health.

Please help me spread the word and get all kids learning about nutrition in a fun, positive way.

The Berry Health Benefits Symposium just convened and more and more wonderful health benefits are being discovered from our tasty fruit, the Berry family:

• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Cranberries
• Blackberries
• And other berries

Helps protect the body from chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer. They block the inflammatory process that we are learning more and more about. Eating high fat foods can cause the body to have an inflammatory response.

Some components in berries fight off infections. Cranberries, for example, contain proanthocyanidins that help prevent urinary tract infections by keeping bacteria from sticking to the walls of the bladder.

Berries taste great and come in so many colors. The darker the better! (more health punch!)

Teach your kids at a young age about the fun of eating berries. A great family day could be going out to a local farm and letting the kids actually pick them!

Here are some Berry helpful tips (sorry, I couldn’t pass that one up)

• Look for colors. The darker the better! (more health punch!)
• Eat a variety
• Eat the whole fruit
• Eat them several times a week

Discover Nourish Interactive – The Fun Way to Learn About Nutrition. Our tools and interactive games teach kids about nutrition and healthy eating habits:
Healthy Eating- Online Food Games for Kids 

Kids Food Pyramid, Food Label and Nutrition Dictionary

Build a Healthy Meal Game 

Tools for Parents:
Learn about our games

Interactive nutrition tools and tips for parents

It’s warm, the days are long, so grab the kids and challenge each other to walk a little farther and faster than before.

Mondays are a great day to renew Family Health vows. Every Monday, you will find some healthy tip to help your family start the week off on a Healthy Note!

Thanks to Healthy Monday organization for sharing their Monday tips.

I liked to share with you a little story:

My mother-in-law, I call her Ma, is always watching her calories and trying to eat healthy.  Her and my father-in-law, I call him Dad, went out to dinner one evening.  Dad looks over the menu and orders his usual favorite, a hamburger with fries.  Now Ma is not too happy about Dad ordering this high calorie meal, but she bites her tongue and carefully looks over the menu.  After a couple of minutes she decides that she has found a nice healthy meal, a chicken salad.

After they placed their order, she put down her menu and began to talk to Dad about how he should really order something a little healthier.  Afterall, he has to take care of his heart and high fat foods aren’t good for you.   Dad, gives her the brush off “Ahhhh, I eat what I like!”

To further her point, she grabs the menu to show him what a better choice he could have ordered, when she notices the back of the menu has the calories listed for each meal.  Wow, this is new.  She quickly looks up his burger and announces that it is almost 750 calories.  But what she did not expect was to find out that her salad was over 1000 calories!!!

I tell you this because we typically underestimate the calories in a meal and often times are misguided, thinking that a restaurant is putting in similar ingredients that we would use when cooking at home.  It is not that salads are unhealthy, but by the time they drown it in very high calorie dressing, bacon bits and other ingredients the calories can really start to add up.

So when eating out, teach your kids to ask for dressing on the side.  That way you can put in just the amount you need.

And as a side note, Ma says she would not have ordered the salad had she known the number of calories.  So despite all the political debate over whether to require restaurants to post their calories, I think it will make a difference.

Resources:  Family Restaurant Tips- Food Choices for Kids Healthy Nutrition

What do you think!

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center has just released a report identifying video games as a useful means to educate children about health.

The report states:

“Digital games show significant potential to promote children’s growth and healthy development. They can foster skills and knowledge that help children with academic learning, as well as habits that contribute to better health.”

Unfortunately, video games have been tainted by the many violent games that are widely advertised amongst teens. Many parents and teachers don’t view games as a way to really teach kids using sound learning concepts.

I was really glad to see that organizations are starting to see what we already know! Video games are part of kids lives, why not use them in a productive way to help kids learn about healthy eating in a way that is meaningful and engaging. If we can’t hold their attention, they are not going to listen. That is our challenge and our goal. To make nutrition fun, to help kids make positive associations with nutrition and promote healthy eating habits.

The report makes the following recommendations:

The report calls for national leadership to coordinate new research investments to build knowledge and game development and training. It urges private investors, publishers and health insurers to form partnerships to encourage entrepreneurship in digital game technologies.

The report calls for a Digital Teachers Corps to help educators integrate curriculum-based games into school and afterschool settings. It also calls for new incentives for community health providers and insurers to deploy potentially cost-saving games to prevent obesity and to promote children’s healthy habits for life.

To update the Department of Education’s Ready to Learn program, which reaches low-income 2-9 year-old children with television programming, the report recommends a new emphasis on digital media such as video games and mobile technologies.

Resources:
About Our Nutrition Games for Children

Play Healthy Nutrition Games

Nutrition Education Games- Tools for Classrooms

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center

Social Impact Games

Share your comments about useful new media technology for educating children about health!

Up activity this Monday

A sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of chronic disease. Get active – it’s summer! Just 30 minutes a day – jog, walk, bike, hike or swim!Mondays are a great day to renew Family Health vows.

Every Monday, you will find some healthy tip to help your family start the week off on a Healthy Note!

Thanks to Healthy Monday organization for sharing their Monday tips.

With the big push for eating healthier, companies are introducing new healthy rating food systems.  With food labels and health claims splattered all over the packaging, it can become very confusing!

Let’s take a look at what is out there:
Food Labels.  These have been on food packages for years and gives you a way to compare some key nutrition ingredients in foods so you can determine which item is better for you and your family.  This to look at when comparing food labels:

• serving size- this is key because all the nutrients are based on this.  A package can contain 4 servings so if you eat the whole package, you have to multiply everything (including fat and calories by 4!)  This is one of the biggest and most common mistakes people make.
• calories and percentage of calories from fat
• what kind of fat is also important – unsaturated fats is the good fat
• other nutrients:  fiber, protein, sugar, vitamins etc

This system has all the information to help you make a better or healthier decision, but with various factors that you have to balance, there is no clear cut answer.  It depends!  So that makes this system a bit hard to use.

NuVal system:  uses a numbering system 1 to 100 with higher scores indicating a healthier product.  So the consumer can compare products and automatically knows which one is healthier based on their algorithm.  That seems a bit simpler but what if you need lower sodium or less sugar.  You will still need to look at food labels for specifics.

Guiding Stars Rating System:   Foods are labeled with a seal that indicates “good, better, and best” nutrition value based on their nutrition guidelines developed by scientists.  Ratings are based on a food’s nutrient density (how much vitamins and minerals are in that food item) per 100 calories.

Nutrition IQ: which is coming this fall, uses a color coded system to highlight nutritional content.  Some foods will have shelf signs with a red tab that says “low saturated fat.” Others will have orange tags for foods that have higher levels of fiber, green tags for items with less salt and blue labels for foods with more calcium.

Then there are other labels from organizations that have set a bar or standard on nutrition or a nutrient component (like fiber) and food manufacturers who meet this standard can place their mark on their package.  For example, American Heart Association has a label for foods that hare rich in fiber or whole grains. These are just a few of the healthy foods rating systems that are out there.

You may see a variety of “health claims” made by the foods that are really “Marketing” trying to think they are really healthier but they might not actually be that healthy.  In fact, there might be a great number of foods that are healthier for your family but you got hooked “when you saw “helps your immune system”  or “heart healthy” ! And you thought, well if the box says that, it must be so.  Nope.  Sorry, it is not that easy.

You have to really read past the initial box claims and see what is really being offered. So what is a poor shopper to do when trying to find healthier choices! Here are some basic rules you can follow to help find the healthier foods:
if it is in a package, it is processed food, so it is already not very healthythink of the basic food groups,

• fresh fruits and vegetables
• low fat or skim milk products
• lean meats, whole beans and nuts
• look for 100% whole grains that is low in sugar

everything else is probably not very good for your kids, so teach them to eat them only once in a while, and teach them to eat small amounts.

Resources:
Learn more about Food Labels
Read about Health Claims
Print a handy Health Claims Reference Sheet for  grocery shopping.

I was shopping at Whole Foods and found an aisle that had many grains, nuts and seeds but they were in big containers and unpackaged. They were much cheaper because these food items were not packaged. You grab a bag and buy only the amount that you need and it is cheaper per pound than if you bought the packaged food.

I was buying black beans (uncooked) on sale and was able to buy the unpackaged black beans for a $1 less (same amount!). I found the same with brown rice, flax seeds, oat bran and walnuts. I was not bothered at all by having to place the foods in the plastic baggies and add the twist tie. In fact, I was very happy that I could buy the quantity I needed instead of a larger amount.

I would have completely missed this aisle if one of the store assistants had not mentioned it to me. What a treat!

Other tips:

Also look for the store brands. I compared food labels and found foods that were comparable to what I needed but because they were the store brand, it was much cheaper!

I also stay away from the packaged to go items. Yes they are convenient, but they cost a heck of a lot more.

I share this story with you, because there are ways to save money and still shop healthy. We just have to take some time and explore the store a bit.

I have been seeing a lot of articles about which states have the lowest and highest adult and childhood obesity rate. This is because the National Survey of Children’s Health has just come out with the latest 2007 figures. The figures for children are based on their bmi percentile score.

Where does your state stand? Look at the percentage of kids with 85% (overweight) and 95%(obese) and add those up. That will tell you what the percentage of kids that are overweight and obese in your state.

Click here to check out your state’ childhood obesity score!

Learn more about bmi to percentile scores for kids

Find out what your child’s BMI score is- our website offers two BMI calculators click on images to go use our free calculators

Check Your Child's BMI Score- Free BMI Calculator

one calculator for parents to check their child’s BMI score and a special calculator for kids which gives positive messages about improving their exercise and nutrition habit rather than a score.

BMI Calculator for Kids- Positive Messages