Nutrition Tips for Healthy Families

I wrote a few weeks ago about what is on my reading list. One of the books on the list was “Nancy Clark’s Guide to Sports Nutrition” by Nancy Clark. There were several other books on the list, and you can read that post here.

I just finished the Nancy Clark book, and there are a few things I wanted to share from the book.

While the book is geared toward active people, whether they are competitive athletes or fitness exercisers, the book is really about using and enjoying food to fuel your body appropriately, and that message applies to everyone, no matter how active they might be.

It’s a great resource for healthy eating and gave me some good pointers (including a several recipes) for putting together a healthy diet for myself and my family.

Some tips, tricks and thoughts I’ll take from the book:

Focus on Food

• Food is fuel. Focus on it, enjoy it and make sure to eat a variety in textures, colors, food groups, etc.
• Chew food slowly so that you can listen to your body’s hunger signals. It takes 20 minutes for the signal that you are full to get to your brain, so if you’re shoveling it in, you’ll have eaten way too much before your body can even register that you don’t need any more food. If you have trouble chewing slowly, try it for one meal a day for a week or two, then two meals a day, etc., until it becomes habit.
• Eat things that are as close to their regular state as possible. I think the words Nancy Clark used were as close to the ground as possible. The more processed the food, usually the more sodium and chemicals it has in it.
• A combination of fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, lean meats, low-fat dairy and whole grains will provide you with enough protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals. You don’t really need extra protein or vitamins if you’re eating a well-balanced diet. Your body can only absorb so much of any vitamin, mineral or even protein. If you have too much of one vitamin or mineral, it can lead to adverse effects, or you’ll eliminate the extra in your urine. Further, the cost of the protein powders or bars are much more expensive per gram of protein than, say, peanut butter, a chicken breast or low-fat milk.
• Don’t focus so much on good and bad foods, but on eating the right amounts of what you like. If you’re eating healthfully most of the time, there’s no reason not to have an ice cream bar, a cookie or a slice of birthday cake sometimes.
• Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you don’t start out eating enough, your body will think it’s in famine mode, and your metabolism will slow to conserve energy. Eat within an hour or two of getting up in the morning. Plus, if you’re not eating enough during the day, you’re more likely to overeat at night, which could blow your efforts to create a calorie deficit or calorie balance by the end of the day.
• Eat at least three different types of foods per meal. Examples: protein, dairy, fruit; fruit, vegetable, protein; etc.
• Carbohydrate (pasta, bread) is not the enemy. Carbohydrate provides the fuel for your muscles, which will allow you to workout at your peak level.
• A recovery meal or snack should come within an hour after working out and contain a mix of carbohydrate and protein to help your muscles recover — one idea is to make a smoothie and drink half an hour or two before your workout and half after.

Losing Weight

• The only way to lose weight is to create a calorie deficit over a period of time. People are most successful at losing weight and keeping it off if they do it slowly — .5 to 1 pound a week if you’re less than 150 pounds and 1 to 2 pounds if you’re more than 150 pounds. A pound of fat is equal to 3,500 calories, so to lose one pound a week, you have to create a deficit of 500 calories a day through a combination of diet and activity.
• You can’t spot reduce fat, you can only tone and build up the muscle underneath the fat. AGAIN, the only way to lose fat is to have a calorie deficit.
• Fad diets often aren’t successful over the long term because they limit what you eat or tell you to eat too little. This sets you up for failure because either you get too hungry, need more types of food, or consider yourself a failure if you eat outside of the boring food plan.

Worth the Read

I could go on, but I won’t. I hope these points gets you interested in healthy eating if you’re not already. There are great resources in the book, not just the recipes, but also how to figure how many calories you need per day, discussion of nutritional benefits of several different foods, discussion on how your body uses vitamins, minerals, carbohydrate, fat and protein, specific concerns for people at certain ages and stages of life, how to talk to your children about weight issues, recognizing eating disorders, and more.

I know this book will be one I keep turning back to.

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Help Children Be Counted

I had no idea that children are the most missed group in the census. When I read the reasons in a recent study, it makes sense, but with the 2010 Census forms arriving in mailboxes next week, we need to spread awareness. The stakes are high because the count is used to dole out federal funds to states and programs that directly help pay for prevention, health and education programs that are geared toward children and their families, like Head Start, special education, the state children’s health insurance program, and more.

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, children are not counted for a number of reasons, from their living in hard-to-count neighborhoods to the fact that the census form only has space for complete demographic information on six household members. The foundation estimated that in the 2000 Census, more than 1 million children younger than 10 were not counted. You can read the December 2009 report here.

Here are some reasons the report writer fears the same will happen this year as the 2010 Census is taken:

Minority children have higher undercount rates, and the share of children age 0 to 4 that are from a racial or Hispanic minority population rose from 41 percent in 2000 to 47 percent in 2008.

More children live in families with one or more undocumented immigrants. Nearly half (47 percent) of unauthorized-immigrant households are couples with children. The number of children with at least one unauthorized-immigrant parent increased from 3.9 million in 2003 to 5.5 million in 2008.

The housing crisis will cause more families to double up in one housing unit or live in other temporary and unusual housing situations. An estimated 2 million children will be affected by the housing crisis, which will make it more difficult to get an accurate population count.

The Census Bureau rolled out a program today called Children Count Too to help combat this problem. It targets parents and others to make sure children are counted. It includes a partnership with Nickelodeon, which produced television ads and radio announcements featuring Dora the Explorer to encourage an accurate count. Additionally, federal, corporate and nonprofit organizations with access to families and child care providers will distribute Children Count Too educational materials. You can read about the program here.

A little about the census from the Census Bureau: The 2010 Census is a count of everyone living in the United States and is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Census data are used to apportion congressional seats to states, to distribute more than $400 billion in federal funds to tribal, state and local governments each year and to make decisions about what community services to provide. The 2010 Census form will be one of the shortest in U.S. history, consisting of 10 questions, taking about 10 minutes to complete. Strict confidentiality laws protect the respondents and the information they provide.

The census forms should begin arriving in mailboxes March 15 through 17. Make sure to fill yours out and spread the word about how the census information is used. And if you know someone who has decided not to fill out the form, talk to them about what it’s used for and encourage them to fill it out.

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Too Much Snacking

There’s been a lot of attention over the past few years to the growing obesity epidemic in the United States, and to the fact that it’s affecting children. Childhood obesity is up to about 16 percent, a 10 percent increase just since 2003, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

A recent study as reported in the L.A. Times found that kids are snacking to the tune of about 170 additional calories a day, enough to equal 1,176 calories a week, which could amount to as much as 13 1/2 pounds of body fat a year.

According to the L.A. Times:

Dr. Judy Palfrey, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the study’s findings pointed to one of many factors that had pushed the nation’s rate of child obesity up.

“We see milk intake and meal intake are going down; the consumption of fatty and salty foods is going up. Everybody is very busy, on the go all the time, not having three meals at home,” Palfrey said. American families need to “think about healthier replacements” for between-meals food, she says, and they need to hear those messages from their children’s physicians.

“Remember the days when we used to get quartered oranges? Bring those back!” Palfrey added.

In 1977, just under 75% of kids between 2 and 18 consumed at least one snack between meals, according to the new study, which tallied the responses of 31,337 children and adolescents to four federally funded food surveys. In 2006, the proportion of kids who snack reached 98%.

That surge in snacking has pushed kids’ overall intake of daily calories to an average of 2,099 a day — up by 100 calories a day since 1977, the survey reports. By 2006, 27.3% of the total calories — just under 600 calories a day — came in the form of snacks, the North Carolina research team found.

Meanwhile, calories consumed at mealtimes have begun to slide slightly since the last food survey was conducted in 1994. The result: U.S. children are consuming more fatty, sugary and salty foods and less of the dairy, protein and produce that predominate at mealtime.

Sweet snacks such as cookies, cereal bars and cakes continue to supply the largest share of snacking calories, but the number of calories consumed in salty snacks such as popcorn, crackers and chips more than doubled from 1977 to 2006, the study found.

So what do we do to dial back the snacking?

I know in my house we rarely have chips, cookies or much other snack food around. We do sometimes have whole-grain goldfish crackers and rice cakes in the house, as well as air-popped popcorn so we can control the amount of butter and salt, adding instead garlic powder, chili powder, pepper or other spices depending on what we’re in the mood for.

As a result, if my 2 1/2-year-old wants a snack before dinner, he usually asks for grapes, bananas, clementines (clementimes, he says), bell peppers, other fruit, or yogurt.

This month is National Nutrition Month, sponsored by the American Dietetics Association, which means they have collected some information to help families and individuals make better food choices. You can find a great deal of information here.

Elisa Zied, a registered dietitian, offers these six tips for better snacking:

1) Choose wisely. Anticipate snacks ahead of time and be sure to include plenty of foods and beverages from the key food groups (fruits, veggies, whole grains, low fat dairy foods, and lean sources of protein including nuts, seeds, and nut butters) on your weekly grocery list and in your cart.

2) Find where the food (or beverage) fits. When choosing among processed and packaged foods, think about whether those foods come from any of the basic food groups. If they don’t fit neatly into any food group, chances are they won’t make the best snack choice and are more like desserts.

3) Be a portion teller. Keeping on hand small plastic cups and bowls and small plastic baggies can make it easy for you to pre-portion snacks and reduce the risk of overeating.

4) Be a selective snacker. When you’re out and about temptations may be tough to handle. The key is that when you have these foods, make sure to adjust how much you eat that day overall — even by a few bites — and limit items made with extra fat or sugar to keep your total daily calorie intake in check.

5) Keep tools on hand to help you end the eating. Whether it’s chewing gum, breath strips, strong mints, or mouth wash, having a few of these on hand can not only leave your mouth feeling fresh and minty, but can help you resist the urge to have “just one more bite,” mindlessly snack, and reduce your risk of eating when not hungry.

6) Snack when you’re sitting down. Try to make sitting when you eat (preferably at a table) a habit, whether you’re home or on the go. You may find you actually eat less AND feel more satisfied.

You can read her whole post here. Cutting back or choosing different snack foods can increase you and your famiy member’s intake of fruits, vegetables and whole grains with a little planning and preparation while helping to decrease the number of excess calories consumed each day.

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Day Care Inspections Debate

Members of the Kansas Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee have been discussing a bill that would change current law regarding how day cares in Kansas are inspected.

To explain about current law, in Kansas, there are registered day cares and there are licensed day cares. Registered day cares have different requirements than licensed day cares. The proposal under discussion in the Senate would require registered day cares to face inspections just like licensed day cares.

Registered day cares are (from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s Web site):

A provider’s own residence in which care is provided by the applicant for not more than six children form birth to 16 years of age with not more than three children under 18 months of age.  All children under 12 years of age related to the provider are included in the total.

• The registrant must be 18 years of age, have an understanding of children and complete first aid training.
• A KBI criminal history and child abuse and neglect background check is processed on all persons living, working or volunteering in the registered family day care home.
• State Certificate Fee is $5.00.  Local fees may also apply.
• The registrant must complete a safety evaluation attesting to the safety of the home in providing for the health and well-being of the children. A registered family day care home is not inspected unless KDHE receives a complaint.

Licensed day cares are (from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s Web site):

A child care facility in which care is provided for a maximum of ten (10) children under 16 years of age and includes children under eleven (11) years of age related to the provider.  This total includes children under eleven (11) years of age related to the provider.  The total number of children in care at any one time is based on the ages of the children in care.

• The license is usually issued for the provider’s own home but may be issued at a location other than the provider’s home. The license identifies the address of the child care facility.
• The licensee must be 18 years of age, have an understanding of children and complete first aid and child care job related training or readings.
• A KBI criminal history and child abuse and neglect background check is processed on all persons living, working or volunteering in the licensed day care home.
• State Licensing fee $15.00.  Local fees may also apply.
• The licensed day care home is inspected to check compliance with regulations to protect the health, safety and well-being of the children in care at least once every 12 months. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment contracts with local county health departments or private contractors to conduct on-site inspections.

A bill under discussion now in the Kansas Senate seeks to have registered day cares added to the list of providers that are inspected, though the bill says that the day cares will be inspected every 15 months instead of every 12 months. In addition, the bill, which you can read here, requires that the day care provider be within eyesight and earshot of the children at all times.

Having taken my child to both a registered day care and a licensed day care, the care he received at both places was and is excellent. But in each case, I did my homework in a similar way and chose from among several options, both registered and licensed. I visited the day cares and observed how the provider and children interacted, asked a lot of questions of the day care provider and asked a lot of questions of mothers who had taken and were currently taking their children to the day care provider.

If you interview a provider whose philosophy on how quickly you should pick up a crying baby, or on how much television it’s OK to watch, or whatever the issue, is different than yours, you may decide to seek another option. If the day care provider smokes, you might decide to choose a different provider. If the day care provider doesn’t have CPR training, you might want a different provider. If the day care provider doesn’t have an open door policy so that you can come see, visit or pick up your child at any time, you should pick a different provider.

There are any number of considerations that could prompt you to not pick a provider. And I can tell you, parents agonize over their decision. After all, during the week, their child spends more of their waking hours in the care of the day care provider than the parent.

I think daily interaction with your child and day care provider is the best way to make sure your child is safe and cared for at day care. Even though my son doesn’t get too detailed yet, I ask him what he did at day care, how his day went and other questions. The goal is to make sure he’s having mostly good days, he’s not being bullied at day care, he’s not the bully at day care, he’s sharing well, he’s not eating all junk food, etc.

The state inspector cannot be there every day, but the parent can. And it is the parent who needs to ask how the child is doing and how things are going each day. I don’t see any disadvantages to mandated state inspections, and it’s possible the inspections might prevent some accidents, but either way the vote goes, parents will continue checking in with their providers and children to help ensure their children are safe and well cared for. The parents and the providers I’ve dealt with wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Newly Discovered Resources

I always love finding new sources of information — especially about parenting.

Here are a few I recently found that could go along with the ones on my list under Blogroll on the right sidebar:

— Associated Content’s Parenting page: The thing I like about this page is it collects a lot of perspectives and topics, so you can find a post about any topic you’re interested in right now.

— The Sixty-Second Parent page: This is set to the preschool section because that is the age of my son, but as you can see, you can easily search by age group. The cool thing about this site is that the entries are straight to the point. No long posts here, so you can get answers and ideas quickly.

— The Kaiser Family Foundation page: This is for more in-depth reports – related to health, health insurance, media, television, etc. You can enter keywords like children and family or children and TV to find specific studies.

— It’s Not About Nutrition page: This site is a great way to get some good ideas for encouraging healthy eating. A recent post: “10 Ways Kids Learn to Love Veggies.”

— Just Parenting Advice page: Another Web site that divides itself into age groups or a big list on the home page so you can quickly find what you’re looking for. The thing I like about this site is the mix of practical and philosophical — quick recipes to discussion of latest research.

If you have others you’d like to add to the list, add them in the comments section. I’ll probably do posts like this every once in a while, so stay tuned, or e-mail me ones you think I should take a look at.

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