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Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Alliance for a Healthier Generation Release Book Showcasing Moms’ Creative Ways to Fight Childhood Obesity in Their Homes, Communities

Post Date: Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

A new book featuring smart tips from moms on tough topics like cutting down screen time, getting your kids to eat more vegetables and increasing physical activity is available to any parent in the U.S. at low or no cost. The book is a product of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint initiative between the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation.  Susan Dell — healthy living advocate, co-founder of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and wife of tech legend Michael Dell — narrates the book. Be Well: Messages from Moms on Living Healthier Lives features the stories of 15 moms who are creatively finding ways to fight childhood obesity in their homes and communities.

Be Well is available free or at low cost online at www.BeWellBook.org, in English and Spanish versions, and through local schools and community centers around the nation. The aim of the book is to make it accessible to any parent who wants to start their children on a healthy path.

“Obesity crosses all socio-economic lines, but the moms featured in Be Well don’t have the resources that many other moms do,” said Susan Dell, co-founder and chairman of the board of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. “What they do possess is the creativity and determination to guide their children toward the healthiest lives possible and show us all that healthy living can be easy and inexpensive. I hope women across the country find a story in this book they can identify with and are inspired to jump-start healthy habits in their own homes, or even share their own personal story on the www.BeWellBook.org Web site.”

“We want to enable parents to take an active role in creating healthy lifestyles for their families, as it is an important piece of the puzzle in the fight against childhood obesity,” said Ginny Ehrlich, executive director of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. “It is our hope that the book will not only inspire families to create a healthier environment for their children at home, but that they will become active in creating healthy communities by joining the Alliance’s Healthy Schools Network.”

The foreword is written by Dr. William H. Dietz, M.D., PhD, Director, Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The moms’ creative strategies in the book map to five levers Dr. Dietz attributes to preventing childhood obesity: 1) decreasing screen time, 2) decreasing high-energy density foods, 3) decreasing sugar-sweetened beverages, 4) increasing physical activity and 5) increasing fruits and vegetables.

A flavor of the moms and tips featured in Be Well: Messages from Moms on Living Healthier Lives:

–Debra in Harlem takes care of not only her own children, but also feeds upwards of 10 children on her own dime to ensure they have access to healthy food. She also finds creative serving techniques like “turkey hotdog necklaces” and “broccoli forests” to make healthy fare appealing to little ones.

–Ashley in Houston runs with her two young sons for at least 60 minutes each night to teach them the importance of physical activity and setting goals. Her eldest son’s grades and behavior improved since starting their nightly routine.

–Jamilia in Oakland had a family history of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. As a 26-year-old mother of four, she made great efforts to cut out fast food by involving her kids in planning the weekly menu and rides the bus 30 minutes each week to buy fresh produce at a farmer’s market.

–Andrea in Tucson recognized the need to improve her family’s habits but wanted to honor her Mexican heritage and ancestors with her cooking. She adapted her culture’s traditional recipes and makes them healthier without sacrificing taste. Instead of frying beans and meats, she uses a slow cooker. Resources Behind the Book

The book was developed by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. The Dell family foundation advocates the need for childhood obesity prevention strategies to intervene at all levels of a child’s environment, including at the individual level, within families, within schools, and in the community. The foundation’s Health Portfolio reflects the passion of book narrator, Susan Dell, the co-founder and chairman of the board and the driving force behind the foundation. An accomplished athlete, Susan was a member of the President’s Council for Physical Fitness and Sports and is a board member of the Cooper Institute in Dallas. In the U.S. she is specifically focused on encouraging kids to be more physically active and promoting healthy eating. Dell also has four children of her own.

To obtain a copy of the book, go to www.BeWellBook.org. Parents can also submit their personal stories or the story of someone they know–and help others develop lifelong, healthy habits. Stories submitted may be published on www.BeWellBook.org.

Topics: Education, Resources and Publications |

Let’s help the schools make better food choices for our kids

Post Date: Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Topics: Education, Health and Nutrition, Partners & Other Links, Regional News |

Albuquerque Journal Article: Growth Spurt

Post Date: Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

ABQJOURNAL EDUCATION: Growth spurt

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Growth spurt

<!–COPYRIGHT:Copyright 2009 Albuquerque Journal–>By Debra Dominguez-Lund
For the Journal
Blake Matheson loves pigs.
He also likes to sing and perform in school plays when he’s not helping out with the family’s cattle.
But his real passion is the National FFA — formerly the Future Farmers of America — and Matheson says you don’t have to be from a farming family to join.
“You don’t even have to work with animals if you’re a member of the association,” the 16-year-old Belen High junior said. Matheson is president of the Belen FFA chapter and vice president of the district that includes Los Lunas, Belen, Socorro and Truth or Consequences.
“It’s a real passion,” he said. “I really enjoy going to a place where there’s a wide range of members,” … from city dwellers “who have never had livestock in their lives” to students whose families have hundreds of cattle.
Matheson is one of 3,726 students in New Mexico who are members of the national organization, which offers agricultural education classes, career development and leadership skills.
New Mexico is predominantly a rural state, but most of the group’s membership comes from Belen, Los Lunas, Roswell, T or C, Tucumcari and Las Cruces, said Jerrod Smith, New Mexico’s FFA executive secretary.
“These are larger towns that have grown around agricultural centers and still have agriculture as a huge part of their local economy,” he said. “We currently don’t have any chapter in the Albuquerque Public Schools system — most of these chapters were dissolved in the ’80s because of budget cuts. We are trying to get programs in urban areas started up again.”
Smith said Rio Rancho’s Cleveland High School, slated to open next school year, is in the process of starting an agricultural education/FFA program, which he hopes will begin an “urban agricultural education trend.”
“As an agricultural education teacher, I had seen firsthand how the program can change the lives of students,” Smith said. “I had several students who didn’t have a place to belong, and the FFA became that place.”
It also helps students plan careers or “guides them to a college education with special scholarships for FFA members,” he said.
Opening an APS chapter also is the goal of Paul Moya, a 2006 Los Lunas High graduate who recently became national president — the first New Mexican to hold that position, according to FFA officials.
For Matheson, the biggest benefit was learning how to speak in front of an audience through FFA speech competitions and talks at 4-H events.
“I remember I used to tremble when I talked in front of people, but now I can talk in front of my class all day with no issue at all,” he said.

Topics: Education, Get Active, Partners & Other Links |

Obama’s New Chef Skewers School Lunches

Post Date: Friday, January 30th, 2009

Tara Parker-Pope on Health

New York Times

January 29, 2009

Before he agreed to cook for the Obama family in the White House, Chicago chef Sam Kass was already talking about changing the way American children eat.

During weekly Tuesday gatherings at the Jane Adams Hull-House Museum in Chicago, Mr. Kass hosted “Rethinking Soup,” which he described as “a communal event where we will eat delicious, healthy soup and have fresh, organic conversation about many of the urgent social, cultural, economic and environmental food issues that we should be addressing.”

In May, over a meal of locally-produced beef and barley soup, Mr. Kass lamented the sorry state of the National School Lunch Program, which provides low-cost or free lunches to schoolchildren. He noted that what gets served up to kids is influenced by government agricultural subsidies. As a result, he says, meals served to students are low in vegetables and disproportionately high in fat, additives, preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup. (He also links the high consumption of sugary foods and food additives to learning difficulties and attention deficit disorder, although the medical community remains divided on that issue.)

Here’s the text of his talk, as posted on the Hull House Kitchen Web site.

Providing our children healthy food at school, it is easy to say but a monumental challenge to realize. I will quickly give a lay of the School Lunch landscape as it stands, and then let’s hear from our guests.

Malnutrition stemming from the Great Depression had disqualified many potential soldiers from being eligible to fight in World War II; this legacy was still vivid in the minds of our leaders as the U.S. began preparing for the next fight against the Soviet Union. In response, the government launched the National School Lunch Act as a means to boost overall health and nutrition of the population in 1946. Today the program serves about 100,000 public and nonprofit private schools feeding 28 million children a day.

The National School Lunch program also serves another vital role in our agricultural system. The government subsidizes various agricultural industries, creating overproduction in commodities such as beef, pork and dairy. This overproduction depresses prices, endangering the vitality of producers. The U.S. government purchases the overproduction it has stimulated and then disposes of the excess by giving it to schools. In return for the government donation, the schools have to ensure that the lunches reach basic nutritional requirements as set by the government.

In 2003, U.S.D.A. spent $939.5 million dollars buying surplus commodities for School Lunch. Two-thirds of that bought meat and dairy, with little more than one quarter going to vegetables that were mostly frozen; and we should not forget that potatoes are the top selling vegetable in our country. The problem that arose is that between 80 and 85 percent of schools fail the basic government standards for the percentage of fat in the lunches due to the food it supplies schools.

There are a couple major repercussions of this program felt by our children. The first is their ability to learn. There is overwhelming evidence that confirms that additives of colors and preservatives common in lunchroom food hinder a child’s ability to learn. In addition, the abundance of high fructose corn syrup in lunches and snacks has been shown to have a direct link to the attention deficit disorder epidemic.

The second is physical health. According to the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine and the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, by 2010 nearly half of the children in North America will be overweight or obese.

Type 2 diabetes is the new name for adult onset diabetes; the name was changed due to the fact that children are now suffering from this form of diet-induced diabetes. Indeed, the youngest generation might very well live substantially shorter lives than their parents due to diseases related to obesity.

So it is in this context that the speakers who have joined us today spend their lives working. With us is Josephine Lauer from the Organic School Project, which is now working in six schools trying to cook fresh healthy food for students in Chicago; Jean Saunders from the Healthy Schools Campaign, which is doing groundbreaking work in creating a healthy learning environment of which food is a central component; Stephen Menyhart, the brilliant chef of Perspectives-Calumet Charter School; and Angela Mason, coordinator of school and community gardens for the Chicago Botanic Garden.

And if you want to know how Mr. Kass thinks more people should be eating, check out this menu from his private chef business, Inevitable Table. Menu items include citrus salad with fennel, oranges and grapefruit and orange vinaigrette; ancho chili rubbed pork loin with rapini and polenta; and braised chicken in Madeira with root vegetables and prunes, Himalayan red rice, and sautéed escarole with pine nuts.

A new direction for school lunches in the future?  We can hope!

Topics: Education, Health and Nutrition, National News |

Healthy School Report Card Announced

Post Date: Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

For Immediate Release
Contact: Beverly Friedman

September 8, 2008
(505) 795-0180

Governor Bill Richardson and Education Secretary Veronica García Announce Statewide Healthy School Report Card

SANTA FE- Governor Bill Richardson and New Mexico Education Secretary Veronica García today announced plans for a statewide report card that will measure how New Mexico’s public schools are responding to increasingly alarming child health issues.

“We’ve eliminated junk food from our schools, increased physical education and doubled the number of school based health centers,”
Governor Bill Richardson said. “This report card will help us track our progress in ensuring that New Mexico’s students are healthy and ready to learn.”

This school year, 67 schools across the state, including all Santa Fe public schools, will use the Healthy School Report Card developed by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. It will measure each school’s efforts to promote physical activity, provide nutritious foods and encourage family involvement in the health and education of their children.

All New Mexico public schools will begin using the report card within the next three years. Each school’s data will contribute to the statewide report card.

Research shows direct links between student health and academic progress. About a quarter of New Mexico students are considered overweight or obese and increasing percentages are suffering from preventable diseases, such as type two diabetes, caused by poor nutrition and sedentary lifestyles. The problem is worse among the state’s Hispanic and Native American students.

“In New Mexico we know that healthy students make better learners, which is why Governor Richardson has placed a focus on the whole child in New Mexico’s school reform efforts,” said Secretary Veronica García.
“The Healthy School Report Card will provide our schools with a cost-effective planning tool in order to affect positive change, determine policies, and establish programs at the local level.”

In addition, the report card will help districts and schools meet the state’s wellness policy mandate, which requires school health advisory councils to provide twice-yearly data-based recommendations for improving student health.

“We need a community approach to address rising rates of obesity among our students,” said Health Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil. “Getting schools more involved in promoting healthy lifestyles is an essential key to helping youth develop patterns now that will carry with them through adulthood.”

Des Moines Municipal School in Des Moines, New Mexico is one of 11 school and district sites from across the United States and Canada that have been using the HSRC to involve their communities in improving student health and academic performance as part of a pilot study. The school opened a school-based health center last August that provides physical, dental, and mental health care for students, staff, and the surrounding communities.

“The work at Des Moines Municipal School epitomizes community collaboration to ensure all children are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged,” said Gene Carter, Executive Director of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. “I admire and applaud Governor Richardson and Secretary Garcia’s commitment to providing resources so that all New Mexico schools can work with their communities to address a critical - but often overlooked - element of academic achievement.”

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Topics: Education, Health and Nutrition, Regional News |

National ‘Fruit and Vegetables - More Matters’ Month is Now

Post Date: Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

Produce for Better Health Foundation

For Immediate Release
September 15, 2008

For More Information Contact:
Jill Le Brasseur
Communications Specialist
Produce for Better Health Foundation
Tel: 302-235-2329
Email: jlebrasseur@pbhfoundation.org
TAKE YOUR CHILD TO THE SUPERMARKET DURING NATIONAL FRUITS & VEGGIES-MORE MATTERS MONTH

New Kids Activities Available Free Online

Wilmington, Del. - September is National Fruits & Veggies-More Matters® Month! In honor of this celebration, the Produce for Better Health Foundation website team has developed “Take Your Child to the Supermarket” activities to help parents introduce the bountiful variety of fruits and vegetables to their children. These materials are available to everyone online, free of charge. Just print them out and plan a trip to the store!

The “Take Your Child to the Supermarket” materials were designed as a series of fun, educational activities that encourage parents to get involved in teaching their children about fruits and vegetables during a trip to their favorite grocery retailer. The activities are age appropriate for kids four through ten years old, but may be appropriate for kids a little younger or a little older depending on the individual child. They are designed to encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables.

The “Take Your Child to the Supermarket” activities give parents new tools to help them engage the whole family in the shopping experience and teach children that fruits and veggies can be fun in an entertaining, memorable way. The activity pages can also be printed out by teachers to provide a way to reinforce nutrition lessons while the kids enjoy a fun game.

The new activities include:
• Eat Your Colors Everyday - It’s important to eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables everyday. This activity encourages kids to find five different fruits and vegetables in each of five color groups.
• I’m Stuck on Fruits & Veggies - This activity encourages children to collect the PLU stickers from each piece of fresh fruit or veggie eaten at home and place them on the “I’m Stuck on Fruits & Veggies” card. When the card is full, the child can receive a special treat and then begin another card!
• All Forms Count - Fruits and vegetables come in many different forms, fresh, frozen, canned, dried, and 100 percent juice, and they’re all good tasting and packed with good nutrition! This activity encourages children to check off the different forms of fruits and veggies they find as they explore the supermarket!
“Parents have a tremendous influence on their children,” said Elizabeth Pivonka, Ph.D., R.D., president and CEO of Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH) the nonprofit entity behind the Fruits & Veggies-More Matters national public health initiative. “Taking a little extra time at the grocery store to interact with kids and single out fruits and vegetables as important could make those kids more willing to give healthy fruits and veggies another try. We hope to help moms by offering the ‘Take Your Child to the Supermarket’ activities as a fun way for kids to learn about good nutrition.”

The new “Take Your Child to the Supermarket” materials can be printed from the Fruits & Veggies-More Matters website, www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org. The website also features great tips for adding extra fruits and vegetables to the whole family’s diet, from user-friendly cooking advice and recipes, meal planning help, nutrition information and interactive areas where parents can have their questions answered by other parents or a registered dietitian.

###

About Produce for Better Health Foundation
Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH) is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) consumer education foundation whose purpose is to motivate more people to eat more fruits and vegetables to improve public health. PBH is a member and co-chair of the National Fruit & Vegetable Alliance (NFVA), consisting of government agencies, non-profit organizations, and industry working to collaboratively and synergistically achieve increased nationwide access and demand for all forms off fruits and vegetables for improved public health. This vision of the NFVA is a nation in which half of the foods Americans eat are fruits and vegetables. Fruits & Veggies-More Matters is the nation’s largest public-private, fruit and vegetable nutrition education initiative with Fruit and Vegetable Nutrition Coordinators in each state, territory and the military.

PBH’s mission is to lead people to eat more fruits and vegetables because it matters for their better health. The foundation achieves success though industry and government collaboration, and a variety of marketing and nutrition education programs. To learn more, visit www.pbhfoundation.org and www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org.
Produce for Better Health Foundation | 5341 Limestone Road | Wilmington | DE | 19808

_

Topics: Education, Health and Nutrition, National News, Resources and Publications |

Great Food in a French High School - Let’s do this here!

Post Date: Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Beautiful account of a public school in France using fresh, local foods within 30 miles for the cafeteria…make sure to listen to the audio version to enjoy the sounds of cooking and laughter.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91687769&sc=emaf

Morning Edition, July 2, 2008 · Chef Dominique Valadier starts each day at 5:30 a.m., just as the fish market opens in the southern French provincial town of Salon de Provence.

On one particular day, he picks up 20 pounds of fresh, live mussels at the market before heading off to Lycee de l’Emperi, the public high school where he is the cook.

At the school, he prepares meals for about 800 students, using all fresh, local ingredients. The introduction of healthy school lunch programs, like this one, is one major reason France has been able to curb childhood obesity rates after two decades on the rise, according to two recent studies.

From Within 30 Miles

The menu on this day at Valadier’s high school: mussels in cream sauce over rice with leeks and stuffed turkey thighs, accompanied by a squash au gratin casserole.

Nothing here is frozen or pre-prepared, Valadier says.

“Voila. This sticker here shows where these mussels came from and when they were harvested,” he says. “This guarantees their freshness.”

Eyes twinkling and knives flashing, Valadier opens up the plump turkey thighs, cutting out the bones.

The flattened turkey filets are wrapped around a stuffing of ground up parsley, garlic, cheese and smoked pork shoulder. The loaves are then tied with twine and baked for three hours at low temperatures to keep in the juices and flavor. When sliced, they will serve hundreds of students, 10 times the number that could have been fed on the plain turkey thighs. Preparation and proximity are the keys to high quality meals at lower prices, says Valadier.

“We try to get our base products — meat, fish, vegetables — within a 30-mile radius, because there are fewer intermediaries and we can negotiate prices and quality with the producer. These turkeys were raised and slaughtered just near here,” Valadier says. “If I have a problem, I’ll ask the producer to come see me, and I can guarantee you things will be a lot better the next time!”

Healthy and Cheap

All around the school kitchen, food is cooking in various pots and pans. Gallons of bechamel, a seasoned white sauce, bubble for the squash casserole. A vat of chickpeas boils for homemade hummus. It is hard to believe this is a public school cafeteria and not a three-star restaurant.

Perhaps what is most impressive about Valadier’s meals is that they cost the students only $3 a day, less than the typical fast food fare served at many French high schools.

Another way Valadier saves money is by getting maximum use out of every ingredient. He never throws anything away. In one corner of the kitchen, he is boiling down the fish heads, flesh and bones from yesterday’s salmon to make a tasty bouillon for today’s mussels.

As lunch hour begins and the students file in, Valadier serves them while answering questions about the meal. He reaches across the counter with a forkful of the squash au gratin to give 17-year-old Valentine Biemence a taste. Biemence says she and her friends have all but quit eating lunch at McDonald’s and have discovered a lot of new dishes.

“It’s all the time different food and very, very good,” Biemence says. “People are really happy, because it’s really hard now to eat well and cheap.”

Investing in the Future

Valadier once worked in the glamorous world of Riviera restaurants. He says he left that life for something more meaningful. Investing in students’ well-being is also an act of citizenship, he explains. If young people learn to eat well early on, they will cost the country’s health care system a lot less in the future.

He has clearly found his calling here, while winning over the students — and teachers. Danielle Viou teaches drama and English at the high school.

“We are very, very lucky because it’s a real project. It’s not just doing the cooking, it’s a whole concept of educating and taking time and enjoying it,” Viou says. “And it’s artistic at the same time.”

Topics: Education |

Chef’s tips help students enjoy healthful snacks: Paradise Valley school cart is big hit in lunch room

Post Date: Thursday, June 5th, 2008

The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz. May 19, 2008

May 19–Renowned Valley chef and restaurateur Eddie Matney was joking with the lunch crowd he served Friday, addressing most customers by name as he handed out fruit and vegetable kabobs and low-fat cookies.

And it’s a good thing he knew them, too, because the students shopping at Chef Eddie’s Snack Wagon in the Cherokee Elementary School cafeteria are also his son’s classmates at the school in Paradise Valley.

Even though Matney sometimes comes in to see the students and help serve, the local television personality doesn’t claim this is his venture.

The idea for the snack cart came from Sue Bettenhausen, the Scottsdale Unified School District’s food services director, as a way to encourage kids to eat healthful snacks while reducing the wait time in the lunch line.

“The entire trend is once they get out of the meal line, anyone who is interested in additional items can go to the snack table,” Bettenhausen said. “We’re not encouraging kids to eat a fruit stick first before their entrees.”

It was an accident that Matney got involved at all.

Bettenhausen wrote a letter home to parents explaining the benefits of the a la carte options coming to campus. Matney saw the e-mail message and responded, asking if he could help.

So Matney came in and met with the schools’ fourthand fifth-graders, asking what kind of food they’d want. He took those requests and made some sample dishes for Bettenhausen’s staff to look at, who weighed those and other options as they developed the menu.

Matney said the students’ top request was roasted salmon. While that hasn’t made it on the menu — at least, not yet — there are several other healthy options, like fruit with yogurt dips and salads.

Matney hopes that giving students healthy food options will encourage them to keep making healthy choices, even outside the Cherokee cafeteria.

“It’s awesome that the kids say they want hummus and pita chips,” Matney said. “They can’t keep edamame (a soybean concoction) in this place.”

The food cart has proved popular so far. Cafeteria staff said it brought in about $370 its first day of operation and generally attracts between 320 and 350 of the school’s approximately 550 students daily. The upscale snacks go for 50 cents to $2 apiece.

And this is just a pilot project — Bettenhausen wants to replicate the carts at other elementary schools starting this fall.

“I’d like to see two more starting at the beginning of the (school) year,” she said. “We weren’t even sure it was going to be successful, but now it is.”

—–

To see more of The Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.eastvalleytribune.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SNA, its staff or its members. Stories are collected from a variety of independent sources. Please contact the source directly with any questions or comments.

Please note that articles featured in the “In the News” section are only available for a limited time. If you believe you will need to refer back to an article, be sure to make a note of the original source.

Topics: Education, Regional News |

A New Shape for the Old Pyramid?

Post Date: Saturday, April 26th, 2008

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released a new Food Guide Pyramid. There was talk of making it a different shape, like maybe a plate, but they ended up keeping the pyramid. Before they released the new version in April 2005, we asked kids what shape they would like the Food Guide to be.

A Food Guide Scooby Doo?

So what shapes did kids suggest? How about the Food Guide Lava Lamp - or the Food Guide Flower? Animals were big. Would you like the Food Guide Frog or the Food Guide Dog? Marissa, 12, even suggested a cartoon dog - the Food Guide Scooby Doo.

“He is my favorite character on TV and I know a lot of people would pay more attention to the good food groups,” she said.

Hey, Marissa is on to something. If the new food guide is something kids like and understand, they might listen to the message it’s trying to send about what to eat. Everybody wants kids to hear this message so they eat nutritious foods, feel good, and grow up healthy.

The Shape Matters

If the new food guide were Scooby Doo, it might get your attention, but it probably wouldn’t say much about healthy eating. The shape of this nutrition symbol is important.

Thirteen years ago, experts picked the pyramid shape because it could be divided into sections and those sections were different sizes. Different food groups were placed in these different sections. The bigger sections could show people that they should eat a lot of those. And the tiny tip, where fats, sweets, and oils are, could show people that they don’t need as much of those foods.

In the new version, the foods are vertical stripes to show that variety is very important. One side of the new pyramid also features a little guy running up the stairs. That’s to show people they need to be active and eat right!

Kids Get a Pat on the Back

We asked some nutrition experts about the ideas that kids sent us. The ones they liked best were those that made this connection between the shape and the message the shape sends. What do we mean? Some shapes would be fun to look at, but other shapes help say something about healthy eating.

“It sounds to me like we should have engaged these kids in this decision a long time ago,” Dr. William Dietz said.

Hey, that’s a big compliment to kids! Dr. Dietz has a top job at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heading up the division on nutrition and physical activity. His job is to figure out ways to help kids and adults eat healthy and get plenty of physical activity.

Another nutrition expert also praised the creative suggestions. Dr. Marion Nestle is a professor at New York University and has written books about food and nutrition.

Dr. Nestle said: “What’s so impressive about the ideas in your set are that they deal with the real issues: eating healthfully, eating less, being active, and not eating too much junk food. Good advice for everyone!”

Dr. Dietz liked the Food Guide Human Body, suggested by McKinzie, 11. She explained her choice this way: “The human body reminds us of the fact that you are what you eat.”

McKinzie made different parts of the body stand for different foods. For instance, the heart would be vegetables because they’re heart-healthy foods. The legs would be grains - for energy. Bones would be dairy products and the arms would be meat to keep your muscles strong. Just the tongue would stand for sweets, fats, and oils, which are “a good thing in small amounts,” she said.

“McKinzie has this right,” Dr. Dietz said.

He also liked suggestions for a Food Guide Star and a Food Guide Sun. Brandi, 9, suggested the sun because of “the beams of health beaming down on us.”

Dietitian Marilyn Tanner also liked the kids’ ideas for the new pyramid. Tanner said it’s a good idea for kids to learn about the Food Guide Pyramid. She teaches a class about healthy habits for kids and parents through St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri. Tanner, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, says that when kids understand something about eating healthy sometimes they can teach their parents!

“I wish there could be a Pyramid song to go along with it,” she said. Then, like the songs in the old “Schoolhouse Rock” series, kids would know it by heart.

Saying Goodbye to the Old Pyramid

Now that there’s a new pyramid, kids will have to get adjusted to it. For instance, grains are no longer on the bottom. Instead, grains are represented by the orange stripe on the new pyramid. Some kids said they were ready for the pyramid to be a new shape. When we asked Sharmaine, 10, if she’d miss the old pyramid, she wrote “No” 47 times!

Grace, 12, agreed: “A pyramid wasn’t so exciting for the children to follow, so a new, funky one would be exciting!”

But Dana, 13, said she will miss the old pyramid because the new one will probably discourage too much white bread and pasta. “That stuff is good!”

To older people, like your parents, the old Food Guide Pyramid still seems kind of new. (They grew up learning about the 4 basic food groups.) But the old pyramid was around for 13 years - as long as many kids have been alive! So it’s OK if you think you’ll miss it a little now that the new one has arrived.

Jordan, 11, put it this way: “It is pretty hard to change something that you’ve known all your life and expect to learn it easily … What will they be changing next? The alphabet?”

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD
Date reviewed: April 2005

Topics: Education |

Be a Fit Kid

Post Date: Sunday, April 20th, 2008

There’s a lot of discussion these days about fit kids. People who care (parents, doctors, teachers, and others) want to know how to help kids be more fit.

Being fit is a way of saying a person eats well, gets a lot of physical activity (exercise), and has a healthy weight. If you’re fit, your body works well, feels good, and can do all the things you want to do, like run around with your friends.

Some steps only parents can take — such as serving healthy meals or deciding to take the family on a nature hike. But kids can take charge, too, when it comes to health.

Here are five rules to live by, if you’re a kid who wants to be fit. The trick is to follow these rules most of the time, knowing that some days (like your birthday) might call for cake and ice cream.

1. Eat a variety of foods, especially fruits and vegetables. You may have a favorite food, but the best choice is to eat a variety. If you eat different foods, you’re more likely to get the nutrients your body needs. Taste new foods and old ones you haven’t tried for a while. Some foods, such as green veggies, are more pleasing the older you get. Shoot for at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day — two fruits and three vegetables. Here’s one combination that might work for you:

• at breakfast: ½ cup (about 4 large) strawberries on your cereal
• with lunch: 6 baby carrots
• for a snack: an apple
• with dinner: ½ cup broccoli (about 2 big spears) and 1 cup of salad

2. Drink water and milk most often. When you’re really thirsty, cold water is the No. 1 thirst-quencher. And there’s a reason your school cafeteria offers cartons of milk. Kids need calcium to grow strong bones, and milk is a great source of this mineral. How much do kids need? Aim for 3 cups of milk per day, or its equivalent. You can mix it up by having milk and some other calcium-rich dairy foods. Here’s one combination:

• 2 cups (about half a liter) of low-fat or nonfat milk
• 1 slice cheddar cheese
• ½ cup (small container) of yogurt

You probably will want something other than milk or water once in a while, so it’s OK to have 100% juice, too. But try to limit sugary drinks, like sodas, juice cocktails, and fruit punches. They contain a lot of added sugar. Sugar just adds calories, not important nutrients.

3. Listen to your body. What does it feel like to be full? When you’re eating, notice how your body feels and when your stomach feels comfortably full. Sometimes, people eat too much because they don’t notice when they need to stop eating. Eating too much can make you feel uncomfortable and, over a period of time, can lead to unhealthy weight gain.

4. Limit screen time. Limit screen time. What’s screen time? It’s the amount of time you spend watching TV or DVDs, playing video games (console systems or handheld games), and using the computer. The more time you spend on these sitting-down activities, the less time available for active stuff, like basketball, bike riding, and swimming. Try to spend no more than 2 hours a day on screen time, not counting computer use related to school.

5. Be active. One job you have as a kid — and it’s a fun one — is that you get to figure out which activities you like best. Not everyone loves baseball or soccer. Maybe your passion is karate, or kickball, or dancing. Ask your parents to help you do your favorite activities regularly. Find ways to be active every day. You might even write down a list of fun stuff to do, so you can refer to it when your mom or dad says it’s time to stop watching TV or playing computer games!

Speaking of parents, they can be a big help if you want to be a fit kid. For instance, they can stock the house with healthy foods and plan physical activities for the family. Tell your parents about these five steps you want to take and maybe you can teach them a thing or two. If you’re a fit kid, why shouldn’t you have a fit mom and a fit dad?

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD
Date reviewed: May 2007

Topics: Education |

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