Thanks to all who participated in our Children’s Nutrition Survey and Curious Chef Kids’ Cooking Set Giveaway, over 500 responded to share their feedback on our nutrition education website, children’s nutrition, current food issues and challenges for getting kids to eat healthier.

We heard from many parents, grandparents, educators and health care and food service professionals, neighbors, and more. Thank you for sharing the survey with friends and on Twitter and for taking the time to share your experiences and great opinions. We  value all of your thoughts and ideas and will be releasing a report on this exciting nutrition study very soon!

The wonderful prize of child sized cooking tools by Curious Chef drew great interest for the survey. ‘Cooking with kids‘ is a hot topic, as more families are finding getting children involved in the kitchen increases children’s interest in eating healthy foods and more communities are offering cooking classes for kids of all ages.  We used random.org to choose the winner and send congratulations to Brett M from Tampa Florida the winner of the Curious Chef 27 piece Foundation Set!

Visit Curious Chef for fun child sized cooking tools for kids in the kitchen! Start your collection of kid sized cooking tools with one special piece, a foundation set to get started or a gift set. For added value look for money saving online coupons and free shipping offers on their site.

You can also follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/curiouschef

Parents, grandparents, educators, caregivers, health care professionals and more are needed to share opinions about children’s nutrition. Take our quick online survey and be entered to win a ‘Curious Chef’ Foundation Cooking Set for Kids giveaway. (valued at $59.99)

We can’t believe it is going to be 2 and 1/2 years since we launched Nourish Interactive- The fun ( & free!) way to learn about nutrition.  It has been through your support for our site that we have grown to over almost half a million hits per month, 37,000 members and 4000+ organizations that use our website to help teach children and families about the importance of healthy eating and daily exercise.  And that was all done through word of mouth- thanks to so many of you who spread the word about our free nutrition education website!

We are excited to enter the new school year and want to make sure we are creating the healthy tools and resources that you are looking for.

Please fill out our short survey share your opinions about children’s nutrition and let us  know where you would like us to focus our efforts.  As a thank you for your time, your name will be automatically entered into a contest to win a Curious Chef Foundation Cooking Set for Kids.(valued at $59.99)

You can also be entered into the contest on Twitter by tweeting the following message:

Children’s nutrition survey! Share opinions & enter to WIN a Curious Chef Kids’ Cooking Set http://ow.ly/2md81 #chefsolus

We know cooking is a great way to help kids learn about healthy eating and nutritious foods so we thought what a perfect gift.

Click here to fill out our survey by August 14, 2010 and be entered in the contest!

Thank you to our friends at Curious Chef for donating this special gift, valued at 59.99.  You can find more great cooking items that make cooking so much fun for kids at Curious Chef’s website.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

We are excited to share that Nourish Interactive is also participating in a contest - The Michelle Obama,  Apps for Healthy Contest, part of the First Lady’s Let’s Move Campaign. Please support us and help us continue to grow by voting for our games to win the Popular Choice Vote.  We need your votes to help improve children’s nutrition and fight childhood obesity through positive, fun early nutrition education.  Thank you so much for your support and help!

CHILDREN’S NUTRITION SURVEY- CONTEST INFORMATION

TO ENTER DRAWING:

• Click here and complete survey
• You are automatically entered into drawing
• Each time you retweet this message, you will be entered in the contest:

Children’s nutrition survey! Share opinions & enter to WIN a Curious Chef Kids’ Cooking Set http://ow.ly/2md81 #chefsolus

SURVEY PARTICIPATION DATES:

• Survey begins Friday August 6 and will end August 14, 2010.
• Drawing will be held on August 18, 2010.
• Winner will be announced on August 20, 2010

SURVEY CONTEST RULES

Read the Terms and Condition

Four factors that can make all the difference in promoting a healthy weight child.

1. Involve your child in grocery shopping and cooking
2. Avoid having “food rules” like finish all your food on your plate
3. Get the kids playing actively inside and outside
4. Make being active a priority

These are based on new research released by the SymphonyIRI and FMI completed in April 2010.  The study reports “We have found that just a few differences in behaviors can make the difference between the path to overweight and obesity, and that of maintaining healthy weight children.”

Related resources from Nourish Interactive:

Cooking with Kids Tips

Kids Daily Exercise Needs Article

Improving Kids TV Habits Article

Keep Kids Active During Summer Article

Online BMI Calculator- A free tool for parents to check their child’s BMI

BMI tool for children- Instead of a BMI percentile score, children receive positive messages about improving their exercise and nutrition habits!

Learn about our free interactive online games for kids – The fun way to learn about nutrition!

Getting kids involved in the meal planning is a good strategy to promote a balanced meal and a healthy one.

I know this sounds so simple but some of the best strategies for dealing with kids are pretty straightforward.  If they help decide the menu and help in the preparation, then they are a little more vested in eating it.

Here is a simple way to get started:

Print this free colorful and kid friendly food pyramid.

Have the kids plan the menu requiring them to pick a food from each of the food groups.

Have the kids help pick out the fresh fruit and vegetable at the grocery store.  Here is a cute guide for kids and parents to buying fruits and vegetables in season and how to pick them.

Have your child help in the preparation.  Depending on their age, kids can do quite a bit to help.  Here is a quick guide on cooking activities based on the child’s age.

Have the child name the meal or special dish.  Yes, add the little extra fun in it.  ”Tony’s SuperSonic Meal” or “Jazzie’s Dreamy Surprise” .  Kids are very imaginative, let them come up with a fun name that they can use to introduce their meal to the family.

Avoid barbeque binging.

Stay on track this Memorial Day by using small dishes instead of picking from a larger bowl or package.

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.

We are really excited to share with you a new resource from our partners Healthy Monday¡  They are launching today a new section of their website devoted to COOKING WITH KIDS!

Their new section will feature:

• Tips on ways to involve children in the kitchen safely.
• Recipes that kids can help with, organized by age
• Instructional videos demonstrating new recipes and how children can participate
• And more to come!

There is so many compelling research showing the benefits to bringing kids into the kitchen and letting them participate in meal planning, shopping and cooking.  This is a great way and a fun way to have them learn about fresh foods and healthy foods!  The more they interact with healthy foods, the more they will be likely to eat them.

The kitchen represents important family time and a wonderful opportunity to help kids learn to love fresh foods, cooking and healthy meals.

We are happy to share each Monday a new “Kids Cook Monday” Tip.

Serve vegetables as an appetizer.  For example, start dinner with two green beans and two carrots!  If they’re served last or with other foods, kids often fill themselves up and leave vegetables behind.  (Kids Cook Monday Tips-Source Laptop Lunches)

Today is the big Easter egg hunt and festivities held every year at the white house for hundreds of children.  What I love about this year’s festivities is the focus on nutrition and healthy eating.   Our first lady has continued her commitment to promoting healthy eating to children as part of every event.

This year, besides the big Easter egg hunt, there will be stations set up throughout the area promoting healthy foods, cooking with kids staffed by some leading chefs, fun exercise stations with basketball, hula hoop and even yoga (to name just a few).  Even a farmers market and a trip through the White House garden to see what fruits and vegetables are currently being grown.  Music and dancing is also part of the event which is always a lot of fun and great exercise!

When she opened up the event and welcomed the children, she kept it fun and positive but still talked the kids about how much fun it was to be active and eat healthy foods.

This is a great example of how we can do the same in school activities, birthday parties, holiday festivities and even simple fun family outings.  These are all opportunities to promote healthy choices and being active in a fun way.   And it doesn’t have to be very elaborate, you know kids have a great imagination and if they pick up ideas and messages very easily.  As long as it is presented in a way that is fun to them.

The fast food industry and high fat/high sugar food manufacturers constantly bombard kids with fun advertisements, cartoon characters and toys promoting how fun it is to eat their products.  And obviously it has been a good formula.  But kids need to hear the other side, and we can work together to provide that message in little and big ways.

So next activity, think a little out of the box, and see how you can bring in a little fun and promote nutrition and exercise to kids.

Thank you Michelle Obama for demonstrating that healthy messages to kids can easily be part of kids’ festivities!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter weekend.  This weekend, many kids will be coloring eggs and then having fun partaking in an Easter Egg hunt.

I wanted to share some food (egg) safety tips about coloring and eating colored eggs for a fun a healthy Easter holiday:

Coloring eggs safety:

• Wash your hands thoroughly before you handle eggs at each step including cooking, cooling and dyeing.
• Refrigerate hard-cooked eggs if you won’t be coloring them right away
• Refrigerate them again right after you dye them and after you display them.
• Color only uncracked eggs.
• If you want to eat your dyed eggs later, use food coloring or specially made food-grade egg dyes dissolved in water that is warmer than the eggs.
• Throw away any eggs that cracked during dyeing or while on display,
• Don’t eat eggs that have been out of refrigeration for more than 2 hours.  They could be growing bacteria and make your family and friends very sick.
• If you hide eggs, consider hiding places carefully. Avoid areas where the eggs might come into contact with dirt, pets, wild animals, birds, reptiles, insects or lawn chemicals.
• Refrigerate the hidden eggs again after they’ve been found.

Healthy Easter Themed Nutrition Worksheets and Activities for Kids- Coloring pages, word puzzles, bookmarks and more!

Happy and Safe Easter to everyone!

Source:  www.incredibleegg.org/egg

On this week’s shopping trip, look for low-sodium or “no-salt added” soups, vegetables and beans. Have the kids help read food labels.  Skipping sodium can reduce your family’s risk for high blood pressure!

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 wanted to share with you a recipe contest that is open to all  7 and 8th graders.

Our partner, Healthy Kids Challenge, is hosting a Stirring Up Health™ National Middle School Recipe Contest.

March 13, 2010         Entry deadline
April 9, 2010             Contest winners notified
May, 2010                Chef for a Day visit or prizes
June, 2010               Contest results posted on HKC Web site

To read more about the entry rules, click here.

Good luck and Happy Cooking!