A CHALLENGE FOR ADULTS

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

"Let food be thy medicine."

                                             ---- Hippocrates

In a recent talk to employees of a large nonprofit organization, I asked participants to write down one thing they would like to change about their health. 

Can you guess what the overwhelming answer was?  It was “lose weight”.  In one hour, I taught these employees, from the CEO down to the truck drivers, five specific ways to start making changes to put them on the path to healthier weights and better health.  

With two in three adults in the United States overweight and obese, it seems to me that solutions to the childhood obesity epidemic must begin with raising the health literacy of adults.  There is no question in my mind as to why we have a health crisis in this country. 

Here’s my challenge to you:  help me identify three organizations in the southeast U.S. (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama) where at least half of the employees are overweight and obese and the employees want to get to healthier weights.   Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. is looking for companies who want healthier and more productive employees.  These three organizations will work with me over 90 days.  As your virtual Chief Wellness Officer, I promise to improve the health literacy of your employees, improve your productivity, get your employees to healthier weights, AND lower your absenteeism. 

Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. is a movement to provide leadership and solutions to the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States and beyond.  Without the commitment of America’s businesses, local governmental units, and organizations, kids don’t stand a chance of growing up healthy and free of obesity-related diseases.  

With the commitment of businesses, government employees, and local organizations, our kids DO have a great chance of being growing healthy kids and adults.  

As adults, we are the role models for the children in our communities.  If they see us drinking sodas and energy drinks loaded with sugar every day, then they think it is OK to drink a soda and think nothing of stopping by the local 7-11 to buy a Monster energy drink or a Coke on the way to school.  We are our children’s teachers.  Do we want our children to grow up to be obese adults with old people's diseases because we didn’t dare to care about how much sugar they are eating every day in their school lunches or in their afterschool programs with snacks supplied by the school district?  Do we want our children to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes when they are 17 years old and suffer from the amputation of a foot or the loss of their vision when they are in their twenties and we bought honeybuns for them to eat for breakfast every day because it was convenient for us? 

If your organization is willing to accept my 90 day challenge and be part of the solution to the OBESITY EPIDEMIC, then shoot me an email at: growinghealthykidsnow@gmail.com.  Get ready to lead your community’s wellness challenge! I’m ready.  The question is, are you ready?

Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. is a movement dedicated to improving the health - and lives – of America’s children with a laser focus on halting, reversing, and preventing childhood obesity.

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

SUMMER FOODS AND FITNESS

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

 “Success is not convenient.  You have to make room for it.  Stop waiting for the ideal or perfect situation to show up in your life before you make your move.  Now is the time to convert your prayers into performance.  

Faith without works is dead.  There will never be a perfect time in life.  If it’s not one thing…it’s another.  So do what you can and do what you must…NOW!  Most people let things happen.  You have the power to make things happen!  You have GREATNESS within you!”

                       ---Les Brown

Can you believe that summer vacation is half over already?  Let’s kick off the rest of summer with some great ideas to “HEALTH UP” your kids and your family. As my friend Les Brown said, "You have the power to make things happen!"  

COOL IDEA NUMBER ONE:  Check out this health snack idea to help everyone keep their cool AND take advantage of the great summer sale prices on fresh grapes while they are in season.

STEP ONE:  Wash and gently dry (air dry is fine) purple or green grapes.

STEP TWO:  Place grapes in zip lock bags (15 grapes per bag). 

STEP THREE:  Place bags in freezer.

STEP FOUR:  When kids need a snack, let them take one bag from the freezer for each kid and watch them explode with excitement over the flavor of frozen fruit!

STEP FIVE:  Listen for your kids (and your spouse) to say, “THIS IS BETTER THAN CANDY!” 

Kids teaching other kids in one of our peer education projects at local schools.  Healthy Habit 1:  More fruit, less juice!

Growing Healthy Kids' Peer Educators setting up for one of our parties at Imagine School.  

COOL IDEA NUMBER TWO:  Here’s another very cool idea for keeping all the kids (your and the kids in the neighborhood) busy and healthy:  FRUIT PIZZA.  Click here for the step by step instructions for making the best fruit pizza ever!

COOL IDEA NUMBER THREE:   Need to get your kids outside more (and less screen time)?  Start growing your own veggies using this ultra-cool new technology aeroponic personal grow system.  Assign your kids the job of check the water levels every two days and within 28 days you will be harvesting your own fresh, very locally grown greens. Click here to order your personal grow system (use discount code "growhealkids" at checkout).

Enjoy the rest of your summer vacation and send me your favorite healthy kid-friendly recipes at growinghealthykidsnow@gmail.com.  Look for your recipe in a future issue of WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS!

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

Note for new readers:  The Growing Healthy Kids movement is dedicated to creating solutions to our national childhood obesity epidemic and to the prevention of obesity-related diseases, such as Type 2 Diabetes, in children.  See the top right corner to order NOURISH AND FLOURISH which provides a road map for parents.  

CHILDREN DIE IN SCHOOL LUNCH POISONING

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS 

“It should be emphasized that the problem of contamination with antibiotics in our foods and particularly in milk is a small one compared to our other current food safety problems which have arisen in large part as a result of technologic progress in food production, processing, and distribution in the processing of food, preservatives, antioxidants, colors, bleaches, flavors, coatings, drying agents, moistening agents, thickening agents, sequestering agents, “aging” agents, stabilizers, emulsifiers, neutralizers, acidifiers, and sweeteners are used.” 

-- from a 1957 report from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration minimizing the risk from antibiotic contaminants in our food supply as reported in “The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson: On a Farther Shore” by William Souder

Today in India, dozens of children died from an insecticide in their free school lunches.   According to CNN.COM, “The poison was organophosphorus, a chemical that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is commonly used in agriculture.  It is a nerve agent related to sarin gas, which is commonly used in chemical warfare, the U.S. Health Department says.” Click here to read the CNN story.

Children in the United States are also consuming foods containing chemicals commonly used in food production that can be harmful, if not deadly.  As parents, it is time to talk to the Food and Nutrition Manager for your child’s school district, asking questions about what chemical are in the foods your kids are eating in their school breakfasts and lunches, how the foods are grown, and what additives are in the foods served to your kids. 

What can parents do?  Call your school district's Food and Nutrition Program Manager.  Here are some questions to ask him or her:

• How many chemicals, additives, preservatives, artificial food dyes, and chemical "stabilizers" are in the foods served to our children?
• How many teaspoons of added sugar are in the flavored milks served in public schools?
• What percentage of the vegetables and fruits served to children in the free and reduced meal program are grown in the state and what percentage are trucked/flown in from other states/countries?
• What percentage of the vegetables and fruits served to children in our public schools are grown chemical-free?
• What percentage of the vegetables and fruits served are GMO (genetically modified organisms)?  

In the county where I live (Indian River County, Florida), two in every three kids (66%) qualifies for the free and reduced meal program.  What that means is that 2/3 of all children eat most of their meals at their school.  My dear friend, Bonnie Swanson, who retired last December as principal of Vero Beach Elementary School, taught me about the “situational poverty” of her students’ parents, who, through no fault of their own, were unemployed or underemployed due to the economic downturn of the past five years. What I learned from Mrs. Swanson is a lesson I will never forget because Vero Beach Elementary School is in the heart of Indian River County.  Many of America’s wealthiest Fortune 50 CEOs retire here because we live in “a slice of paradise.” Yet, children are struggling to thrive and learn each day because they are starving. 

The way I was raised, paradise is not supposed to include children who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, let alone whether it is filled with delicious, locally grown vegetables.

Mothers and fathers are the heart of the food revolution to protect the health and lives of America’s – and the world’s – children.

As a mother, I ask a lot of questions.  We trust that schools will provide healthy foods, not poisons such as sugars and foods laced with chemicals.  We want our children to thrive.  In light of the tragedy in India, it is time to change the questions we ask of our nation’s schools and the foods provided by the USDA. 

My heart aches for all the mothers and fathers in India making funeral arrangements for their children who died today because they ate their free school lunch. 

Chemicals are killing our children.  Ask questions.  Read food labels.  Find out about the foods your kids are eating at school or in snacks at their after-school programs.  Their lives may depend on it.  

Please say a prayer for the parents in India who lost their children today.  Act to ensure that the same thing does not happen here to our children.  Know your farmers.  Know where your food comes from.  

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.