March's Tip For Parents --
From ISVI's Dietary Department

Healthy Food Choice

Parents are children’s most important teachers. Talk with your child about smart food choices, and how important they are for learning in school, playing for fun and sports, feeling good and staying healthy.

• Use positive messages: they help avoid the stress and guilt that can lead to eating disorders and poorer eating habits as children age. Let them know there are no "good" or "bad" foods. The key is moderation in how much they eat of a particular food, and eating foods from the Five Food Groups.

The Five Food Groups

1. Grains - make half of your grains whole. Choose whole-grain foods such as, whole-wheat bread, brown rice, and low fat popcorn, more often.

2. Vegetables - vary your choices. Go dark and orange, eat spinach, broccoli, carrots and sweet potatoes.

3. Fruits - focus on fruits - eat them at meals, and at snack times. Choose fresh, frozen, canned, or dried. Go easy on juice, as they contain more sugar.

4. Milk - get calcium-rich foods to build strong bones. Serve low-fat and fat free milk, and other milk products, such as cheese, cottage cheese and yogurt, several times a day.

5. Protein - go lean with protein, eat lean or low-fat meat, chicken, turkey and fish. Also, eat more dry beans and peas. Add chickpeas, nuts or seeds to salads, pinto beans to a burrito, or kidney beans to soup.

• Set expectations : It’s easier for children to make healthy food choices when they know the family’s "nutrition rules". For example; everyone in the family starts the day with breakfast, milk is the beverage served at meals, and snacks are from the the food groups.
   
• Talk about nutrition choices wherever you go : Whether it is a fast food restaurant, convenience store or vending machines, encourage your child to find nutritious options, such as shakes or flavored milk instead of soda.
   
• Make good nutrition convenient. Pack your kitchen with nutritious foods that are ready to eat: fruits, vegetables, milk and whole-grain snacks instead of high-fat, high sugar snacks.
   
• Involve children : let your child help plan meals, make the grocery list, unpack groceries and help prepare meals. Use these activities to talk about healthy food choices.

Why Teach Nutrition?

Recent health statistics show today’s children are at risk. Only two percent of children meet the Daily Food Guide Pyramid recommendations. The number of overweight children has nearly doubled in the last decade. One out of four children is overweight or at risk for becoming overweight.

Sixty one percent of overweight ages 5 - 10 have one or more heart disease factors. Type II Diabetes, once considered an adult disease, is becoming more common in overweight children.

Good nutrition and good education go hand in hand. It helps students grow, learn and do well in school. Well nourished children have higher test scores, better school attendance and fewer classroom behavior problems.

Research shows that knowledge and skills children learn today help them choose healthier foods tomorrow and into adulthood. Parents are children’s most important role model. When you talk about good nutrition and choose healthy foods, chances are greater that children will too!

Additional Resources

http://www.actionforhealthykids.org/

http://www.thebodypositive.org/

http://www.healthyweight.net/

                     Text only version of Anatomy of MyPyramid

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