Did you catch the premiere of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution last night?
Don't worry if you missed it, it really kicks off with a 2-hour event this Friday (the 26th).
Jamie is a British celebrity chef who has started a 'revolution' within the public school system of his homeland, and is spurring one on our side of the pond as well. His challenge is the city labeled "the unhealthiest in America," where more than 50% of the population is OBESE. The town that is also known for "We are MARSHALL;" Huntington, West Virginia.
You'll be amazed to see what is fed in the public school system (pizza for breakfast?) and the guidelines they must abide by (each meal should include TWO grains, each student MUST have milk [good idea, but they all pick high-sugar chocolate or strawberry]).
I encourage you to check it out. It will challenge you to think more about what you serve your family and who you allow to make health/nutrition decisions for your children.
Become part of the revolution!!
Have a HEALTHY day!
~ Fit Britt
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Monday, March 22, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
10 Ways to Get Kids to Eat Healthier
I just came across a pretty good article by ACE (American Council on Exercise) and thought I would share the highlights with you. This is from their Jan/Feb 2010 Fitness Matters Magazine.
In summary, here are the 10 tips published by Dr. Natalie Muth to help you encourage your kids to eat better:
1. Model Healthy Eating: Eat healthy foods yourself! Be enthusiastic about it!
2. Eat Together: Family meals are generally more nutritious and provide an opportunity to talk about food and model healthy behaviors.
3. Increase Exposure to Healthy Foods: Continue to reintroduce foods that your children have previously shunned. Children learn to eat (and enjoy) what they are exposed to most often.
4. Let Them Choose the Portion Size: This gives children a sense of empowerment, and they often choose appropriate portion sizes. As parents, it is common to dish too much food onto your child's plate and encourage them to finish their plate. Instead, let your child become intuned to their internal hunger cues.
5. Share the Control: As mentioned above, do not make your child clean their plate. Additionally, do not offer them a dessert reward if they finish a particular item, as this can lead the child to dislike that item even more.
6. Refuse to be a 'Short Order' Cook: Instead of feeling the need to cater to what each child wants for dinner, make sure there is at least one healthy food the child likes at each meal time. If they do not want to eat it, excuse them from the table and let them know that you will save their dinner for them if they become hungry later. This also helps children become more accustomed to eating previously rejected foods.
7. Limit Television Time: TV watching is linked to poor nutrition, mostly because of the numerous commercials for unhealthy products (such as sugary breakfast cereals, soft drinks, candy, salty snack products, and highly processed foods).
8. Exploit Similarities: Once a food is accepted, find other foods of similar color, flavor, or texure to introduce your child to. (ex: pumpkin pie --> mashed sweet potatos --> mashed carrots)
9. Make Eating Healthy Fun: Teach your child about plants by planting a small garden. Allow your child to pick out one new fruit and veggie at the farmers market to try at home.
10. Skip the Food Fights: The more a parent pressures their kid to eat a certain item, the less likely the child will be to develop a taste for it. Kids resist pursuasion. Instead, try your hardest not to put up a fight because that will make this food item a bigger deal than it needs to be. Just follow the tips above and reintroduce that food again at a later time.
I hope you find these helpful, I thought it was a pretty great article and wanted to summarize it for you!
Have a HEALTHY day!
~ Fit Britt
In summary, here are the 10 tips published by Dr. Natalie Muth to help you encourage your kids to eat better:
1. Model Healthy Eating: Eat healthy foods yourself! Be enthusiastic about it!
2. Eat Together: Family meals are generally more nutritious and provide an opportunity to talk about food and model healthy behaviors.
3. Increase Exposure to Healthy Foods: Continue to reintroduce foods that your children have previously shunned. Children learn to eat (and enjoy) what they are exposed to most often.
4. Let Them Choose the Portion Size: This gives children a sense of empowerment, and they often choose appropriate portion sizes. As parents, it is common to dish too much food onto your child's plate and encourage them to finish their plate. Instead, let your child become intuned to their internal hunger cues.
5. Share the Control: As mentioned above, do not make your child clean their plate. Additionally, do not offer them a dessert reward if they finish a particular item, as this can lead the child to dislike that item even more.
6. Refuse to be a 'Short Order' Cook: Instead of feeling the need to cater to what each child wants for dinner, make sure there is at least one healthy food the child likes at each meal time. If they do not want to eat it, excuse them from the table and let them know that you will save their dinner for them if they become hungry later. This also helps children become more accustomed to eating previously rejected foods.
7. Limit Television Time: TV watching is linked to poor nutrition, mostly because of the numerous commercials for unhealthy products (such as sugary breakfast cereals, soft drinks, candy, salty snack products, and highly processed foods).
8. Exploit Similarities: Once a food is accepted, find other foods of similar color, flavor, or texure to introduce your child to. (ex: pumpkin pie --> mashed sweet potatos --> mashed carrots)
9. Make Eating Healthy Fun: Teach your child about plants by planting a small garden. Allow your child to pick out one new fruit and veggie at the farmers market to try at home.
10. Skip the Food Fights: The more a parent pressures their kid to eat a certain item, the less likely the child will be to develop a taste for it. Kids resist pursuasion. Instead, try your hardest not to put up a fight because that will make this food item a bigger deal than it needs to be. Just follow the tips above and reintroduce that food again at a later time.
I hope you find these helpful, I thought it was a pretty great article and wanted to summarize it for you!
Have a HEALTHY day!
~ Fit Britt
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Where to Find the Time?
Hello again! One of Fit Britt’s followers asked an excellent question. “ . . . How [does] Environmental Mama fits exercise into her daily schedule? For me, I find WAY too many excuses not to exercise (it is not my favorite thing to do:) and it is easy for a mother to play the martyr and say things like "oh but I have to do this for (insert family member or dog's name)" and then forgo exercising.”
I completely agree that it is even more difficult for moms to come up with an excuse and something with which I definitely struggle. First, I repeat to myself frequently.....happy mom makes for happy kids. Being fit and happy with my size and health makes me better able to deal with my kids, regardless of their age. Whether I am handling a screaming baby, fussy toddler, tantrum-throwing 2 yr old, sassy 3 year old....or a challenging teenager, I am better equipped if I am self-confident and have an outlet for stress. I reason that taking care of myself actually helps me take better care of my children.
So, how to actually take the time to exercise? Here's how I try to stay on track with exercising:
I handle it one of two ways:
1. I make it part of my scheduled day. I have a “spot” where exercise regularly goes. It may be twice a week, three days a week, or five days a week, but it is planned ahead of time. I find myself more likely to exercise if I always do it, say at 9am, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Make a standing date with yourself.
2. I make an external commitment. It may be a local 5k that I sign up for (and pay) three months in advance, or join a local recreational sports team. You can adjust your “external commitment” based on your fitness level and what you enjoy. Perhaps it will simply be a regular aerobics class you attend with a friend or agreeing to coach a child's soccer team.
I alternate both methods frequently. I seem to go through phases where the regular exercising works great. Say, my husband knows on Tuesday and Thursday at 6pm is my workout time.....or I set my alarm early to do a video three days a week....or I take my kids for a walk before lunch every day. If I’m working, perhaps I devote two lunches to a brisk walk or run. Generally, at some point I find myself “falling off the wagon.” That is usually when I sign up for something. Personally, being a runner, it is typically a race of some sort. I register and pay and set up a training schedule. I’ll be honest. I usually regret signing up at some point, but I press on knowing I’ve already paid and told people about it. I am ALWAYS proud of myself and pleased at the end. That commitment gives me the extra oomph! I need to accomplish a new level of physical fitness. It keeps me inspired to keep up with my regularly scheduled workouts. Until, of course, the cycle repeats itself :)
In conclusion, I think finding the time to exercise is always a challenge regardless of where you are in life. I suggest trying different methods and finding what works for you. If you plan for a morning workout, and sleep through your alarm two weeks in a row—perhaps you need to reassess and look at an evening workout. If you are always skipping the evening workouts (this is me), then try a morning. Or sign up for a fun rec team. A three month sports season might be perfect to get you back into the groove of being fit. We all need encouragement from time to time, so find a positive fitness influence for you. At times I am better than others. Just keep at it!
Good Luck and Happy Exercising!
--Environmental Mama ;)
Additional tidbits from the Fit Britt:
I think this post equally applies to those who don't have kids! You often hear people say "I don't have time..." but the reality is we all have exactly the same amount of time each day. We also each have our own priorities. Having children is a huge lifestyle change, just like moving, starting a new job, getting married, etc. I think it is most important to establish your new routine as quickly as possible, so that it becomes a habit to make it a priority. Equally important is creating a support team. Talk to your spouse/sig-o about ways they can support your new lifestyle desires (watch the kids for an hour, be open to trying new foods, join in on the activity, etc.). However, we can't push our goals onto someone else, so whether the people you live with are on your cheer squad or not, you'll need an entire social network of friends to meet up with for walks, healthy snacks, group exercise classes, etc. Our society loves to catch up with friends over food and drinks... why not catch up during a hike instead? Maybe not all of your friends will be willing, but you certainly need some friends in your life that will be active with you, especially if you are not self motivated to exercise.
Lastly, I find what works best for me is learning more about the healthy benefits of exercise and proper nutrition (and what happens to your body when you don't exercise and eat right - no matter what you look like on the outside)... so I hope to continue to inspire and motivate you with new information every week!
Thanks AmberJamboree for the question, Environmental Mama for your input, and thanks to all for the dialogues that this blog has created!
Have a HEALTHY day!
Fit Britt
I completely agree that it is even more difficult for moms to come up with an excuse and something with which I definitely struggle. First, I repeat to myself frequently.....happy mom makes for happy kids. Being fit and happy with my size and health makes me better able to deal with my kids, regardless of their age. Whether I am handling a screaming baby, fussy toddler, tantrum-throwing 2 yr old, sassy 3 year old....or a challenging teenager, I am better equipped if I am self-confident and have an outlet for stress. I reason that taking care of myself actually helps me take better care of my children.
So, how to actually take the time to exercise? Here's how I try to stay on track with exercising:
I handle it one of two ways:
1. I make it part of my scheduled day. I have a “spot” where exercise regularly goes. It may be twice a week, three days a week, or five days a week, but it is planned ahead of time. I find myself more likely to exercise if I always do it, say at 9am, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Make a standing date with yourself.
2. I make an external commitment. It may be a local 5k that I sign up for (and pay) three months in advance, or join a local recreational sports team. You can adjust your “external commitment” based on your fitness level and what you enjoy. Perhaps it will simply be a regular aerobics class you attend with a friend or agreeing to coach a child's soccer team.
I alternate both methods frequently. I seem to go through phases where the regular exercising works great. Say, my husband knows on Tuesday and Thursday at 6pm is my workout time.....or I set my alarm early to do a video three days a week....or I take my kids for a walk before lunch every day. If I’m working, perhaps I devote two lunches to a brisk walk or run. Generally, at some point I find myself “falling off the wagon.” That is usually when I sign up for something. Personally, being a runner, it is typically a race of some sort. I register and pay and set up a training schedule. I’ll be honest. I usually regret signing up at some point, but I press on knowing I’ve already paid and told people about it. I am ALWAYS proud of myself and pleased at the end. That commitment gives me the extra oomph! I need to accomplish a new level of physical fitness. It keeps me inspired to keep up with my regularly scheduled workouts. Until, of course, the cycle repeats itself :)
In conclusion, I think finding the time to exercise is always a challenge regardless of where you are in life. I suggest trying different methods and finding what works for you. If you plan for a morning workout, and sleep through your alarm two weeks in a row—perhaps you need to reassess and look at an evening workout. If you are always skipping the evening workouts (this is me), then try a morning. Or sign up for a fun rec team. A three month sports season might be perfect to get you back into the groove of being fit. We all need encouragement from time to time, so find a positive fitness influence for you. At times I am better than others. Just keep at it!
Good Luck and Happy Exercising!
--Environmental Mama ;)
Additional tidbits from the Fit Britt:
I think this post equally applies to those who don't have kids! You often hear people say "I don't have time..." but the reality is we all have exactly the same amount of time each day. We also each have our own priorities. Having children is a huge lifestyle change, just like moving, starting a new job, getting married, etc. I think it is most important to establish your new routine as quickly as possible, so that it becomes a habit to make it a priority. Equally important is creating a support team. Talk to your spouse/sig-o about ways they can support your new lifestyle desires (watch the kids for an hour, be open to trying new foods, join in on the activity, etc.). However, we can't push our goals onto someone else, so whether the people you live with are on your cheer squad or not, you'll need an entire social network of friends to meet up with for walks, healthy snacks, group exercise classes, etc. Our society loves to catch up with friends over food and drinks... why not catch up during a hike instead? Maybe not all of your friends will be willing, but you certainly need some friends in your life that will be active with you, especially if you are not self motivated to exercise.
Lastly, I find what works best for me is learning more about the healthy benefits of exercise and proper nutrition (and what happens to your body when you don't exercise and eat right - no matter what you look like on the outside)... so I hope to continue to inspire and motivate you with new information every week!
Thanks AmberJamboree for the question, Environmental Mama for your input, and thanks to all for the dialogues that this blog has created!
Have a HEALTHY day!
Fit Britt
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