GET THE FAT OUT

If America is up to the challenge of reversing our childhood obesity epidemic, then we need the right tools for the job.   It’s safe to say that we need lots of different tools in our tool bag if we're going to right this wrong.  

With 2/3s of adults in this country overweight and obese and 1/3 of American children overweight and obese, we (the adults) need to be better role models for children.  It is wrong for children to grow up eating primarily highly processed foods filled with too many calories, and too much sugar, fat, and refined carbohydrates.  It is wrong that many kids go days without eating fresh fruits and vegetables. It is wrong that school districts do not require physical education  (PE) classes.  It is wrong that some elementary age kids in public schools have only 1/2 hour of PE a week.

Being overweight (and thus being at increased risk for all diseases and conditions that are a direct result of “wearing” too much fat on our bones) is a direct result of eating too much food, consuming too many calories, and not exercising enough.  Some people are oblivious about how many calories they are consuming and using and can use some help.

There is a cool tool that can teach you how many calories you are eating, drinking, and burning throughout the day.  The BodyMedia FIT armband offers up to 95% accuracy, according to its manufacturer.  These armbands retail for $199 each, but three are being given away in a contest I read about in a little booklet called Remedy’s Healthy Living I recently picked up at my local Publix supermarket.  Here’s the deal:  go to www.healthcommunities.com/RHLgiveaway between February 24, 2012 and May 9, 2012 and enter the information requested.  There is no purchase necessary to enter to win.  What do you have lose?

Let’s work together to be healthier role models for America’s overweight children by losing a few pounds ourselves.  To learn more about obesity and your own body mass index, go to www.cdc.gov.   

Growing Healthy Kids is a movement focused on improving the health – and lives - of America’s children, one child and one garden at a time.  Eat better, move more, feel great!

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

FIGHTING OBESITY...Recipes from the Growing Healthy Kids Project

At our last FITNESS, FUN, AND FOOD event in Vero Beach, Florida, the kids and adults learned how to make Fresh Corn Salsa.  This delicious dish can be used as a side salad and goes great with grilled fish, baked chicken, and of course, Mexican dishes such as enchiladas and fish tacos. 

Below is the recipe for this simple, healthy dish filled with flavors from the garden.  This is a basic recipe that can be changed up depending on what is fresh, in season, and of course, what you have on hand. 

To prepare corn, follow these easy 3 steps:

1. Put into a large pot of boiling water and cook 4 minutes:
• 4 ears of fresh corn, shucked
2. Rinse corn under cold water to stop the cooking. 
3. Stand up one ear of corn at a time in a large bowl and cut the corn off the cob. 

Chop and add to the corn:

• 4 Roma tomatoes
• 1 green pepper
• 1 red pepper
• 1 yellow or red onion (we used a Florida sweet onion)
• 1 avocado (optional)
• ½ cup fresh cilantro

 Open, drain, and rinse:

• 1 can black beans

Add:

• Juice of 4-5 limes
• ¼ cup Mojo marinade

 Thanks to Veggies of Vero (www.veggiesofvero.com) for supplying vegetables used in the preparation of this recipe.  Fresh Corn Salsa received the Growing Healthy Kids' Seal of  Approval on February 25, 2012 from the kids with Youth Guidance Mentoring & Activities Program. As Ginny Rhodes, Program Director with Youth Guidance fondly says, “We LOVE Veggies of Vero!”

Did you know…

• An ear of corn averages 800 kernels in 16 rows?
• More corn, in weight, is grown worldwide than any other grain?
• half an ear of corn has about 15 grams of carbohydrates (if you have diabetes, this is about 1 serving of carbohydrates)

 Enjoy this recipe and stay tuned for many more.  We’re working on something REALLY BIG for our readers all around the world. 

Growing Healthy Kids is a movement to reverse childhood obesity, one garden and one child at a time.  Thank you for all you do to teach your own children the joys of eating real food.

One of our Master Gardener volunteers teaches a girl how to slice peppers.

A boy concentrates on chopping cilantro for the FRESH CORN SALSA.

Sincerely,

Nancy L. Heinrich, M.P.H.

Founder

FIGHTING OBESITY WITH FITNESS, FUN, AND FOOD

Here are a couple of myths I hear:

MYTH 1: It’s hard to teach kids how to eat healthy.

FACT: Teaching kids how to eat healthy doesn’t have to be hard. Start with a simple food project and teach them a new skill. Give them room to try out new flavors.

MYTH 2: Eating healthy is too expensive.

FACT: When you choose foods that are in season, especially foods grown by your local farmers, it can be inexpensive to eat healthy.

MYTH 3: Youth Guidance has plenty of adult mentors for the kids they serve.

FACT: There are still 400 kids on Youth Guidance Mentoring & Activities Program's waiting list hoping to be matched with an adult mentor. Through our collaborative education programs, we help identify mentors for these kids.

Learning how to eat healthy and stay fit is what we do in the programs taught by Growing Healthy Kids. We engage kids in the process by having “fun with a purpose” as Ronnie Hewitt used to say to me.

Here’s the story about last Saturday's Fitness, Fun, and Food Growing Healthy Kids with Youth Guidance Mentoring & Activities Program event held at Riverside Park. Twenty great kids and some enthusiastic adult volunteers spent the morning getting fit on the fitness trail, checking out the cool things to do and see at the Vero Beach Museum of Art's Community Day, then learning how to make Fresh Corn Salsa. The food was fabulous and the young chefs had a blast learning some basic techniques for use in the kitchen, such as how to use a knife, how to slice vegetables, and creative license with ingredients. The cool thing to watch was that ALL the kids wanted to be involved, not just some of them. They ALL wanted to wear the Growing Healthy Kids' aprons that give them superpowers for eating healthy foods. They ALL were having fun with the purpose of learning how to eat healthy, one vegetable and one child at a time.

Below are pictures from Fitness, Fun, and Food. Be inspired to teach your own children about the joys of having fun with a purpose, especially in the kitchen. A very special thanks to Rebecca Hornbuckle of Veggies of Vero for supplying the farm fresh veggies for this event. The flavors of the just-picked tomatoes, peppers, and spinach were delicious. The juicy navel oranges provided very stylish decorations for our “al fresco” dining table.

Growing Healthy Kids is committed to reversing childhood obesity and improving the health of America’s children, one garden and one child at a time.  To learn how you can help, go to http://www.growinghealthykids.me/.

Respectfully yours,

Nancy Heinrich

PS - Watch for the Fresh Corn Salsa recipe in our next blog!  To learn more about becoming a mentor with Youth Guidance, just call 772-770-5040.



Nancy Heinrich get the kids excited about the fresh veggies.



Go, girls, go!



A volunteer and her mentee make squares for new Community Mural.



One participant learns how to use fresh lime juice to flavor foods.



Valerie Flanagan and kids on the fitness trail at Riverside Park.

OBESITY, DIABETES, AND MINDFUL EATING

Have you heard about mindful eating?  Just think about the words.  Eating.  Mind.  Full.  A mind full of food.  Presence of mind.  Think about what you eat.  How much you eat.  What quality of food you eat.  With whom you are eating.  Be mindful about eating. 

As I continue to search for and create solutions to childhood obesity and diabetes, I always get back to this statement:  You are what you eat.  This is what mindful eating means to me.  When you know where your food was grown and you eat the right amount and kind of foods, and you enjoy what you eat, things start rebalancing themselves.

For me, mindful eating begins on Saturday mornings when I head over to one of our two Green Markets.  I talk to my friends who happen to be the farmers growing the yellow beets, swiss chards, and Purple Cherokee tomatoes I buy.  I plan my menus around what I just bought.  Then I pair the menus with friends.  This to me is mindful eating.  Quality, not quantity.  Enjoyment, not convenience.  Balance, not greed. 

If we are going to solve the childhood obesity epidemic, we must first take a look at ourselves.   Think about what you eat.  Be mindful of what you eat and how much you eat.  Enjoy what you eat.  You have the power to prevent diseases and obesity if you just think about it. 

Growing Healthy Kids is a movement to halt, reverse, and prevent childhood obesity one child and one garden at a time.  Be part of the solution.  Your children will thank you.

Your friend,
Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

KIDS, DIABETES, OBESITY, AND FIBER

Every day there is a lesson.  It might be a lesson learned, occasionally a lesson taught.  Today's lesson for me was to be fully engaged in serving others. 

Teaching someone about the basics needed to know what to eat after you've been diagnosed with diabetes is a big step forward towards reversing diabetes.  The basics about what an A1C blood test is, what a "serving of carbohydrate" is and looks like, what low blood sugar is and what to do to treat it and prevent it.  Teaching someone what questions to ask their doctor so they can start reversing their diabetes, not just control it. 

Do we continue to roll the rock uphill?   Don't let diabetes be an uphill battle for you and your family.  Learn the facts.  Here's a fun fact to remember:  most Americans eat too little fiber.  Are you one of them?  What about your child?  The goal is 14 grams of dietary fiber per 1,000 calories eaten.  If you eat around 2,000 calories a day, then aim for at least 28 grams of dietary fiber.  If you are a young, active male, you probably need 2,500 or more calories, which translates to about 35 grams or more of dietary fiber a day.  With McDonald's, Sonic, and Five Guys advertising to get us all fat as pigs, it really is an uphill battle sometimes. 

An easy way to get enough fiber every day is to use "The Nancy Rule" for buying and eating bread and pasta. Even if you eat out.  Never heard of "The Nancy Rule"?  It's simple:  Choose breads and pastas that have 4 or more grams of dietary fiber per serving AND the first ingredient includes the word "whole".  Commit to this one change and see what happens to your blood sugar.   Funny thing is that when you replace low fiber-content foods with higher fiber-content foods, you'll eat less and lose weight. 

One of my favorite creations:  Veggie Shepherd's Pie

Key ingredient in my Veggie Shepherd's Pie:  chick peas

I think that all families with children need to know that this simple fact - and others - can guide them to keeping their kids well for life.  We can reverse the childhood obesity epidemic when we all eat smarter, better, and healthier.  Remember, anyone can eat healthy - and economically (more on that later).

Use "The Nancy Rule" for the 7 days and then let me know how you feel.   Talk with you soon,


Nancy L. Heinrich, M.P.H.
Founder of the Growing Healthy Kids movement to reverse childhood obesity in Indian River County, Florida and beyond

For free tips and videos about food and diabetes you can use:  http://www.healthydiabetescoach.com/. 

PS -- The Veggie Shepherd's Pie recipe will be featured in the soon-to-be released first book in  the Growing Healthy Kids' series,

OBESITY, HUNGER, AND CHILDREN

Choosing to eat healthy foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables, is something you probably take for granted.  To solve the childhood obesity crisis, kids' access to healthy foods, such as locally grown fruits and vegetables must improve and increase.  Fruits and vegetables are what I call REAL FOOD, as opposed to artificial foods, loaded with salt, sugar, and the bad fat, like you find at many fast food restaurants. 

I may be "going rad" on you, but what people buy from the dollar menus at fast food restaurants is not real food because it has no nutritional value.  Something stripped of all the fiber (white flour), fried in fat, and sprinkled with salt and seasonings designed to get you addicted, is not real food.  Yet, people struggling to feed their children, opt for the dollar menus because it is quick, easy, and cheap. It's also a major contributor to the childhood obesity epidemic. 

Something else you should know.  According to an article in the December 3, 2011 issue of the Vero Beach Press Journal, 18% of residents and 30% of children in the Treasure Coast of Florida DON'T REGULARLY KNOW WHERE THEIR NEXT MEAL WILL COME FROM.  

Hunger in America and obesity in America are directly related.  It has to do with access to healthy foods, access to locally grown foods, economic security, and jobs.  If you don't have a job, you have less choices about what to eat.   

Enter Judith Cruz.  Her job just got bigger.  Judith has just been appointed to Feeding America's strategic planning committee "to help formulate the national hunger relief agency's next 5-year plan to close the country's meal gap."  Judith is the CEO of our Treasure Coast Food Bank which provides a stop-gap solution for several counties here on the southeast coast of Florida.  Her Food Bank is part of Feeding America, which is an organization where I will soon be doing healthy cooking classes (they don't know it, however).  Judith deserves our support and ideas.  She is looking at long-term solutions to hunger in America.  Hunger and obesity go hand in hand.

To repeat the key point:  on the Treasure Coast of Florida 30% of kids don't regularly know where their next meal will come from.  Access to healthy food is something most people take for granted.  Yet for almost 1 in every 3 kids here, they are worried about access to ANY food, let alone healthy, fresh food. 

Hunger in America.  Obesity in America.   Be part of the solution.  Go to http://www.feedingamerica.org/ and http://www.stophunger.org/. 

Growing Healthy Kids is a movement to improve the health - and lives - of America's children, one child and one garden at a time.  Because failure is not an option.

Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

Obesity in Kids and Vitamin D

"Obese children with lower vitamin D levels may be at higher risk for type 2 diabetes, a new study shows....Obese children were more than three times more likely than non-obese children to be vitamin D deficient, and both obesity and low vitamin D levels were associated with higher degrees of insulin resistance." 

This quote is from an article I read this morning: "Low Vitamin D May Raise Diabetes Risk in Kids," by Salynn Boyles.

Another finding from the newly published study disturbed me, "Obese children were also more likely than non-obese children to skip breakfast and drink more soda and juice, suggesting that these lifestyle factors may contribute to lower vitamin D levels, the researchers noted." 

I write frequently about the importance of not skipping meals, ESPECIALLY breakfast.  This study, published in the latest issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, makes me stop and think about whether every child whose lives we each touch starts their day with a good breakfast.  Given the current economy and high unemployment rates, it is to the point now where almost anything kids eat for breakfast is better than NOTHING for breakfast. 

In a recent program I did for middle school kids in Indian River County, Florida, only one child had breakfast that day.  ONLY ONE CHILD OUT OF 12!!!  Why?  Is it because of the food insecurity crisis affecting families where parents of young children are unemployed or underemployed?  Is it because of the embarassment and shame that prevents families from applying for the free and reduced meal programs at their child's school?  With the rising prices of food due and fuel, many families are forced to make choices which are affecting their children's (and their own) health. 

One of my jobs is to raise awareness about the root causes for the childhood obesity epidemic in America. The journal article referenced above shines a spotlight on a topic I have long been following. 

I will be writing more on the relationship between low vitamin D levels, obesity, and diabetes in future blogs.  Stay tuned. 

Growing Healthy Kids is a movement to educate adults, school administrators, and policy makers about the root causes of obesity so we can prevent obesity-related diseases, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, in America's kids.  Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. creates solutions which improve the health - and lives - of America's kids, one child and one garden at a time.  It is my belief that our society will be judged in the future by how well we protect our children. 

Gracefully yours,
Nancy L. Heinrich, MPH
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids