It is almost St Patrick’s Day and that means put your lucky “Green On”.

Holidays are a fun way to incorporate nutrition and healthy eating habits!  St Patrick’s Day is certainly no exception.  We have created some very cute and positive nutrition messaging for St Patrick’s Day.

Have the kids learn about nutrition with our “The Lucky Food Pyramid” in which each food group tells you how they bring you luck.  For a fun coloring activity to promote positive nutrition- print the ‘Find and Color’ Lucky Green Vegetables page. Celebrate the luck of St Patrick’s Day and eating healthy with nutrition bookmarks, coloring pages, word scramble puzzles, mazes and more.

Lucky green means lucky green fruits and vegetables!

Oh and the pot at the end of the rainbow.  Yup, it is full of healthy foods from the food pyramid!  And lots more healthy nutrition fun- over 7 Lucky St Patrick’s Day printable activity pages for kids.

Check out our free St Patrick’s Day Nutrition Activities and Coloring Pages and promote nutrition in a fun way!

It’s National Nutrition Month® and a great reminder to all of us about the importance of eating healthy.

The American Dietetic Association promotes March as National Nutrition Month®.  This organization reminds us every year that nutrition is a very important part of our well-being.  In fact, a key component, especially for our children.  Each year, the ADA challenges us to find ways to improve our nutrition.  This year, they are asking us to build “Nutrition from the Ground Up”.

I was thinking about that, what does that really mean?

I think that building nutrition from the ground up means that nutrition really starts at home.  Food associations, preferences and habits are really formed at a young age at home.  Kids are learning every day from their parents about nutrition and how important it really is (or not).  And we, parents, are solidifying our family’s habits every day by the foods we choose to buy, the meals we decide to cook, the way we eat our meals etc.

I believe that if we are going to improve our nutrition and overall well-being, then we need to start with our foundation (the ground floor!)  - our home.

But sometimes it can be challenging to come up with a plan of action to change your family’s eating habits.  We know that with everyone’s busy schedule, who has time?    I think that nutrition habits at home don’t have to be drastic.  In fact, sometimes it is the little changes that can really help you and your family “build nutrition from the ground up!”

We want to help you.  We have a very simple “3 steps to a healthier family” to help you begin.  Three doesn’t sound too overwhelming and our suggestions our very doable.

1. Decide as a family that nutrition is important.  National Nutrition Month gives you a great reason to talk as a family about nutrition and how nutrition impacts a body’s health.
2. Evaluate your current eating habits.  Think about the kinds of foods you eat, meal time for the family, snacks, fast foods, cooking and eating out routines
3. Pick just one or two changes your family will make together to improve your nutrition

Building nutrition from the ground up starts with acknowledgment that it is important.

And remember, it is important to change habits gradually and to keep positive.  Oh, and keep it fun!

Resources:

Learn more about National Nutrition Month and healthy eating- Many topics of interest to parents from the American Dietetic Association

Helping Kids Develop a Taste for Healthy Foods-  American Dietetic Association

“Improving your family’s nutrition one step at a time“- ‘Nourish Healthy Kids – March Edition’

Setting Family Goals and Fun Tracking sheets for the family- Printable healthy eating and physical activity trackers

Note to bloggers:  National Nutrition Month® is asking bloggers to share their ideas and thoughts this month on “What it means to you to build nutrition from the ground up”.  Read more information about how to participate in this campaign.

As we come to the end of February, National Heart Health Month here are some great tips to keep in mind all year long.The American Heart Association’s top ten ways to help kids develop healthy habits.  This should sound pretty familiar, but it is always good to have a reminder.

If you are doing all of these, don’t worry.  What’s important is to start making changes now and gradually change.  Pick one item on the list and work on that.  Set a goal and be positive.  Remember, it takes time to change our habits and every positive change is a step toward a healthier child.
Here are the top 10 tips for helping children develop a healthy heart -  drum roll please!

1. Be a positive role model.  Kids are little sponges and absorb your habits.
2. Be active as a family. Here is some “Being Active” tips and ideas.
3. Limit screen time.  For more help, read “how to limit TV time”
4. Find activities that kids like to do.  Here is a list of ideas.
5. Be supportive.  No nagging please.
6. Set Goals and limits.  Here is a list of kid friendly goals and tracking sheets
7. Avoid rewarding kids with food
8. Make dinnertime, family time.
9. Make it fun to read food labels.  Here is a fun game for kids to learn how to read food labels.
10. Stay involved.  Make healthy choices a priority for the family.

Source AHA

I came across this video about kids being active.  I love the music.  Made me get up from my computer and break out some moves.

With the weather still being pretty cold, here is a fun aerobics video for kids, you can even do the DVD with them. Make being physically active a fun part of your day together.

This is a fun way to encourage kids to be physically active for 60 ‘Move It Minutes’ a Day. You can get a taste of the DVD from this youtube video.  Show it to the kids and see if they start to move.  Finding different ways to get your kids having fun while they are active is the key to helping them build this as a life long habit!

Fit Factor for Kids Website and DVD

Resources from Nourish Interactive- The fun way to learn about nutrition:

Move It Minutes- Printable Daily Physical Activity Tracking Sheet

Get Kids Moving Tips- Healthy Family Article

Family Fitness Tips, Being Active and Fit

More Resources:

Let’s Move - New initiative for improving kids health, nutrition and increasing daily physical activity.

The Kaiser Family Foundation released a report in January showing just how much time kids were spending on entertainment media, like tv, video, computer, ipod etc in a typical day.  The study was conducted with kids from 8 to 18 years old.

You may surprised to read these results:

There is a lot of correlations and stats about what was found.  But let me just make it simple.

Kids are spending way too much time in front of the screen.  Cell phones and ipods are adding to that.  What was interesting was according to this study, only 3 out of 10 young people said they had rules about how much time they could spend in front of the screen.

Some other interesting finds:

• big increase in mobile media usage – cell phones and ipod
• 64%of young people said the TV is usually on during dinner time
• 45% said the TV was on most of the day

Read the full report from Kaiser

Related resources: Reducing tv – screen time articles- printable goal trackers

How to limit your child’s TV habits in a positive way- ‘Managing TV Time’ -Nourish Healthy Kids Article

Ideas for ’screen free’ alternative activities- ‘TV and screen free’ list of ideas- fun activities for kids.( printable pdf)

Limiting TV time-  printable time tracker for kids -Printable daily/weekly limiting screen time goal sheets for kids

Set a Limit TV time (or whatever media device) Kids GOAL sheet- Printable agreement sheet

Include some rest and relaxation in your schedule this Monday. Not only will you feel better, you’ll have more energy and a positive attitude for tackling your to-do list!

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.

Michelle Obama speaks out on the new initiative “Let’s Move”

Let’s Move will give parents the support they need, provide healthier food in schools, help our kids to be more physically active, and make healthy, affordable food available in every part of our country.

We support Michelle Obama and our President 100%.

Healthy Choice Resources

Fun Healthy Goals and Tracking sheets

Nutrition Games and Tools for Kids

Nutrition Tools for Parents

Nutrition Tools for Teachers

Invite family, friends or that special someone to exercise with you this week! Plan an outing that includes fun physical activity, like dancing, skiing or bowling.

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.

In my last post I discussed some tips on how to help kids to be active as a part of a daily lifestyle.

To build on that, I wanted to talk a little more about exercise.

There are three kinds of exercise that important for your child.

1.  Aerobic exercise for the heart:

You will often hear that kids need moderate to intense exercise (aerobic activity). Activities that raise our heart rate are moderate to intense depending upon how much it raises our heart rate.  This is important for all of us because our heart is a muscle and it needs exercise too.  When we do activities that raise our heart rate, we are essentially making our heart exercise.  We also breath harder when we are doing aerobic activity and this is good for the lungs.

Here are some examples of moderate activities for kids:

• Walking briskly
• Swimming
• Bicycle riding
• Tennis (doubles)
• Hiking
• Skate boarding
• Roller blading
• Ice skating

Here are some examples of intense or vigorous activity:

• Race walking
• Playing tag
• Martial arts
• Skipping
• Swimming laps
• Tennis (singles)
• Fast paced dancing like dance revolution
• Cross country skiiing
• Jumping rope
• Field hockey
• Hiking uphill

2.  Kids also need bone strengthening activities.

These are activities where we we essentially putting weight or force on the bones.  This is important because it stimulates our bones to be grow and be strong.

Activities that produce impact on the bones (usually from the ground) include:

• Running
• Jumping Jacks
• Hopscotch
• Jumping rope
• Skipping
• Potato sack race
• Hopping on one or both feet
• Basketball
• Tennis
• Hopscotch
• Gymnastics
• Hip hop dancing

3.  Finally, kids also need muscle strengthening activities.

These are activities that make muscles small and large do more work than usual.  For adults this is usually accomplished from weight lifting or resistance exercises.

Common muscle strengthening activities for kids include:

• Push ups
• Rope climbing
• Tree climbing
• Sit ups
• Climbing trees
• Playing tug of war
• Monkey bars
• Wheel barrel races

You can see that many of the activities listed can actually fall into all three categories.  The important thing is to help kids find activities that keep them moving around and having fun.  When kids are actively playing they will naturally do activities that help the heart, muscles and bones grow healthy and strong.

Activity family agreement

Activity printable tracking sheet

Fun Activity for kids

Get the kids moving!

Limiting kids TV time

Help the kids get active is a great healthy goal for kids and families.

Getting kids to be active is more than enrolling them in sports.  Sporting activities are great but sometimes the focus of sport is winning and losing and not necessarily the need to be active.

Kids need to be active every day for at least one hour.  In fact, that is what is really good for all of us.

The best way to help your kids love activity and develop daily exercise as a habit is to:

• lead by example, be an active parent
• find activities that they love so it is not “exercise” but fun
• sports is good but discuss the role of sports in helping them be active every day
• have some active fun as a family
• let little ones play, the playground or park is a great way for kids to be creative and have fun being active

Related resources from Nourish Interactive- The Fun Way to Learn About Nutrition!

Be Active- family agreement

Daily Activity printable tracking sheet

Printable Healthy Goals Tracking Sheets For Kids

Activities for kids printable list of fun ideas to be active! Print out and put on fridge as reminder to have fun and be active.

Get the kids moving!

Limiting kids TV time article

Printable Tracking Sheets

Click Here for Kids' Physical Activity Tracker Page

Click here for printable tracking chart for kids!

Related resources links:

Kids Be Active 60 Minutes a Day- NFL Fuel up to Play 360

Too much focus on sports & not enough fun activities

All activity may not be equal article