WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Foods for Happy, Healthy Kids

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."  

                                                                        -Walt Disney

Dark chocolate is one of my favorite foods.   A simple daily pleasure is enjoying several small pieces every afternoon.  Dark chocolate (look for chocolates with at least 70% and where cocoa, not sugar, is the first ingredient) promotes good moods, lowers blood pressures, and produces satiety.  

Dark chocolate

Recently I did a taste testing with some elementary age kids.  We compared several different kinds of dark chocolate, looking at the cocoa vs sugar contents.  The amazing thing was that almost all the kids preferred the dark chocolates where the first ingredient was cocoa, not sugar.  We did a “compare and contrast” between the dark chocolate and milk chocolate; when the kids left they had a solid understanding of why dark chocolate is a better food choice.

The fact is that besides being a delicious AND healthy treat, dark chocolate is one of the foods that promote good moods.  Here are more good mood-promoting foods for kids:

• Fruits and vegetables, especially dark-skinned berries such as blueberries and blackberries
• Oily fish such as wild salmon and tuna, which promote brain health
• Turmeric, the spice which makes curry yellow and contains some of the highest levels of anti-oxidants of any food on the planet

Ella Chabot (L) shopping for locally grown veggies at a farmers market in Johnson City, TN

Print the following list of ideas to bring healthy, good mood foods to your kitchen pantry, dinner table, and lunches for school or work:

1. Teach them about good foods such as dark chocolate, leafy green vegetables, and dark-skinned berries that promote good moods, increase focus, and prevent attention deficit disorder. 
2. Give them a day a week when they get to plan a dinner for the family. 
3. Shop together at your local farmers market (find one near you at www.localharvest.org).
4. Buy age-appropriate kitchen tools and invite your children to chop and cut vegetables and fruits with you (a favorite choice in the Growing Healthy Kids Test Kitchen is  always the lemon squeezer).
5. Give your kids choices ("Do you want to cut up red peppers or snow peas?")

Veggies for happy, healthy kids 

Create healthy, lifelong memories with your children by ensuring they have access to good foods.  

In gratitude,

Nancy L. Heinrich, MPH

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: My Favorite Kitchen Tools

"Every child should be taught to cook in school, not just talk about nutrition all day.  Good food can be made in 15 minutes. This could be the first generation where the kids teach the parents." 

                                                                   --Jamie Oliver

Know what? Kids love to have a job in the kitchen.   We give them jobs when they come to our workshops.  That is why we have so much fun playing surrounded by fresh veggies.

One of the great joys we experience in our Growing Healthy Kids in the Kitchen workshops is teaching kids how to use basic kitchen tools.  My belief is that all kids should be knowledgeable in using 10 basic kitchen tools.   Let’s start with two of my favorite kitchen tools.

When kids come to our workshops, they clamor to use the graters and microplane zesters.  Something magical happens when you give a kid a cutting board, a box grater, and a pile of zucchini and carrots or a cutting board, a zester, and a bowl with lemons and limes*. 

My Rx for your children’s wellness?  Take the kids shopping this week and pick out a new kitchen tool.  Playtime!  They’ll have a new job they love and you’ll be halfway towards a great batch of whole grain breakfast muffins!

MEMO TO PARENTS:  Hug your children and tell them "I love you" every day.  These are the most important  habits for Growing Healthy Kids.  

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

*PS-Next time you make a key lime or lemon meringue pie, kick up the flavor by topping it with some citrus zest!   Or add lemon zest to your favorite whole grain blueberry muffin recipe.

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Love Your Heart

“Blood pressure tends to rise with age.  About 65 percent of Americans age 60 or older have high blood pressure.  However, the risk for prehypertension and high blood pressure is increasing for children and teens, possibly due to the rise in the number of overweight children and teens.”  

                                                                   ---National Institutes of Health

February is American Heart Month.  Did you know that kids age 3 and older should be screened for high blood pressure?  Did you know that being obese is one of the risk factors for high blood pressure?  Have you talked with your children’s pediatrician yet? 

According to the National Institutes of Health, prevention and treatment of high blood pressure involves the following:

• Healthy eating
• Being physically active
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Limiting alcohol intake
• Managing and coping with stress

Buried in the “healthy eating” message is the advice to limit sodium intake to no more than 2,300 mg a day or lower for individuals age 14 and older.   Nine out of ten kids consume too much sodium, most of it from processed foods.  

Consider the fact that 1/4 teaspoon of salt contains 590 mg of sodium.   Sodium is the elephant in the room. The fact is that the more salt you eat, the high your blood pressure will be.  Salt is everywhere, hidden in processed foods.  Restaurant foods are loaded with it. We talk about reading food labels and estimating portion sizes but the fact is most parents have no idea how much sodium their children actually consume. 

Next time you see a recommendation for “healthy eating,”think about salt.  Increase your awareness of the foods that are salt mines.  Some foods that are hidden sources of large amounts include hot dogs, prepared macaroni and cheese, ketchup, and canned soups.  Many of these contain more than a day’s recommended amount in one or two servings.  Eating dangerously high levels every day, combined with being overweight or obese, is a recipe for high blood pressure. 

Protect your children’s health and their hearts.  Learn about high blood pressure.  Read food labels to become aware of all the foods your children are eating that contain obscene amounts of sodium.  

Make sure your children are being screened by their pediatrician.  To learn more about high blood pressure from National Institutes of Health, click here. 

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. 

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Teaching Parents

“Like many young doctors, I had received virtually no instruction in nutrition.  Then, as now, medical schools focused almost exclusively on drugs and surgery, even though lifestyle causes most cases of heart disease and other chronic disabling condition.  In retrospect, my lack of formal knowledge of nutrition was a blessing in disguise.”      --David Ludwig, MD, PhD, from Always Hungry?

If doctors receive no training about nutrition in medical school, 

then is it any wonder that parents receive no training?  Since parents are responsible for foods purchased for their children, how do they learn about the good foods that children need for strong bodies and healthy minds?  If advertisers have their way, the only thing parents need to buy are the foods placed intentionally at eye level in grocery stores.  With every advertising dollar spent, they are telling parents, “Don’t worry about those highly processed foods, all those food dyes, and all the added sugars, fats, and salts.  Just buy what we tell you to buy.” 

We did that and now we have a childhood obesity epidemic on our hands.  According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 17% (or 12.7 million) of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are obese. 

Babies are being born to obese mothers.  According to Dr. Ludwig, “excessive weight in one generation may predispose the next for higher lifetime risk of obesity, apart from genetic inheritance and the tendency of offspring to pick up their parents’ lifestyle habits.”*  We have a responsibility to America’s next generation to teach teenagers and young adults about the importance of getting to, and staying at, a healthy weight before they become pregnant. 

Here are 3 tips for parents (and parents-to-be):

1.  Read food labels:

• Count the number of ingredients.  If there are more than 5 or 8 ingredients, choose something else. 
• If you can’t pronounce the ingredients, they are not good for you.  
• If food dyes are listed in the ingredients, don’t buy it. 
• When buying breads and pastas, choose products with the word "whole" as part of the first ingredient (as in "whole grain oats") and with 4 or more grams of dietary fiber per serving (this is known as "The Nancy Rule").  

2.  Plan your meals around what vegetables are in season and locally grown, whenever possible. 

3.  Go for walks after dinner with your children.  This habit will help improve digestion, lower insulin and blood sugar levels, and promote a better night’s sleep.  

Please pass the butternut squash!

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

*Ludwig DS, Currie J.  The association between pregnancy weight gain and birthweight: a within-family comparison.  Lancet 2010; 376 (9745): 9840990; Ludwig DS, Rouse HL, Currie J.  Pregnancy weight gain and childhood body weight: a within-family comparison.  PLoS Medicine 2013; 10 (10): ed1001521.