I’m so excited!  My daughter recently returned home with a flyer announcing this fantastic program being offered through her school!  It’s called, Girls on the Run!  Check out their website, philosophy, vision and plan!  It’s definitely an attitude of CAN that I want my own daughter to embrace.  The problem…my daughter hates to run!  I’m not surprised, my husband doesn’t prefer it either, I, however, love it!

Dilemma…my husband and I both think this is a fabulous opportunity for her.  Not only for skills, friendships, teamwork, but for self esteem. The program in not just about running.  It is goal oriented.  It is work oriented.  It is people oriented.  It is self awareness oriented and it is about a can do attitude. I often have found myself telling my kids that “can’t” isn’t in their vocabulary, that I think they can.  However, it is mind over body sometimes.  Just like the Little Engine that could.

From their website, they state this about their program:  “Girls on the Run® is a 501(c)3 positive youth development program which combines an interactive curriculum and running to inspire self-respect and healthy lifestyles in pre-teen girls. Our core curriculum addresses many aspects of girls’ development – their physical, emotional, mental and social well-being. Lessons provide girls with the tools to make positive decisions and to avoid risky adolescent behaviors.”
Vision

• To provide life-changing, high quality programs for girls
• To provide life-changing and high quality experiences to the women developing and delivering the programs
• To promote and provide an environment that allows girls and women to reach their full potential
• To positively transform how girls and women perceive themselves and their place in society

Editor’s note: Onslow is a proud community partner of Girls on the Run and recently sponsored one of the 5K events. For more information about GOTR, visit their website.

Is this program being offered at other local schools?  What do you think?  For it or against it?

Whopping portion sizes are a big reason for why people overeat. But if you teach your children about appropriate portion sizes, they may be more likely to stick to healthy portions into adulthood.

The Nemours Foundation offers these suggestions:

• Put meals on smaller plates so that the portion appears larger.
• Divide snacks into small portions, instead of sending your child off to snack with the whole bag.
• Separate leftovers into small portion sizes, instead of storing them in larger containers.
• Serve food away from the table, which may limit family members from going back for seconds.
• Produce single-serving foods to help your children visualize what an appropriate serving is.
• Eat meals slowly, and make sure they contain plenty of fruits and vegetables.
• Split orders at a restaurant.
• Skip the plus-sized value meals at fast-food eateries.

Want to learn more?

Here are a few articles to consider:

• Helping picky eaters expand their palate
• How to help an overweight child

Enjoy!

Poor eating and activity habits, not genetics, are the underlying causes for most cases of adolescent obesity, new research suggests.

The finding stems from an analysis involving more than 1,000 Michigan sixth-grade students who participated in the Project Healthy Schools program, which is in place in 13 middle schools across the state.

“For the extremely overweight child, genetic screening may be a consideration,” study senior author Dr. Kim A. Eagle, a cardiologist and a director of the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor, said in a center news release.

“For the rest, increasing physical activity, reducing recreational screen time and improving the nutritional value of school lunches offers great promise to begin a reversal of current childhood obesity trends.”

The study findings were published in a recent issue of the American Heart Journal.

The authors noted that, in 1980, just 6.5 percent of U.S. children aged 6 to 11 years were considered obese, but that percentage rose to nearly 20 percent by 2008.

The recent study found that 15 percent of the participants were obese. And almost all had poor eating habits.

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Image courtesy MSNBC

When you hit the grocery store, do you dread the cereal aisle, wishing to avoid the fight over the sugary cereals your kids crave, versus the healthier options you’d prefer?   Well, it turns out, getting kids to happily eat nutritious, low-sugar breakfast cereals may be easier than you think.

A new study finds that children will gladly chow down on low-sugar cereals if they’re given a selection of choices at breakfast, and many compensate for any missing sweetness by opting for fruit instead.

The 5-to-12-year-olds in the study still ate about the same amount of calories regardless of whether they were allowed to choose from cereals high in sugar or a low-sugar selection. However, the kids weren’t inherently opposed to healthier cereals, the researchers found.

“Don’t be scared that your child is going to refuse to eat breakfast. The kids will eat it,” said study co-author Marlene B. Schwartz, deputy director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

Nutritionists have long frowned on sugary breakfast cereals that are heavily marketed by cereal makers and gobbled up by kids. In 2008, Consumer Reports analyzed cereals marketed to kids and found that each serving of 11 leading brands had about as much sugar as a glazed donut. The magazine also reported that two cereals were more than half sugar by weight and nine others were at least 40 percent sugar.

This week, food giant General Mills announced that it is reducing the sugar levels in its cereals geared toward children, although they’ll still have much more sugar than many adult cereals.

In the meantime, many parents believe that if cereals aren’t loaded with sweetness, kids won’t eat them.

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You’ve enrolled your tween in a sports program; you’re teaching them teamwork, leadership skills and they’re getting their exercise while they’re at it.  Right?  Well, while they might learn new skills and make new friends, they may not be reaping the health benefits you think.

Playing team sports does not guarantee that a child will get the U.S. government-recommended 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day, a new study reveals.

Using accelerometers, a type of sensor that measures physical activity, researchers studied activity levels of 200 children aged 7 to 14 while they took part in practices with their soccer, baseball or softball teams.

Overall, only 24 percent of the children met the 60-minute physical activity recommendation during practice. Less than 10 percent of participants aged 11 to 14 and less than 2 percent of female softball players reached the guideline, said Desiree Leek, of San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego, and colleagues.

Among the other findings:

• Practice lengths ranged from 40 to 130 minutes for soccer and 35 to 217 minutes for baseball/softball, and players were moderately to vigorously active for an average of 45 minutes (46 percent) of the practice time.
• Soccer players were active for an average 13.7 more minutes and active for 10.6 percent more of practice time than baseball or softball players.
• Boys were active an average of 10.7 more minutes and 7.8 percent more of practice time than girls.
• Players aged 7 to 10 were moderately to vigorously active for 7 more minutes and 5.8 percent more of practice time than players aged 11 to 14.
• Overall, the players spent an average of 30 minutes being inactive during each practice.

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