Due to convenience, preference or habit, eating fast food is likely a reality for many families. Let’s face it, scrambling home from work only to rush to soccer or piano practice doesn’t leave a lot of time to find a healthful, well-balanced meal.

If you decide to pick up fast food, know that there are always choices you can make that are better than others. Plus, many fast food restaurants now offer healthful fast food options.

Next time you’re on the go, try these options:

• Choose a fruit or vegetable option or yogurt instead of French fries as a side. This will increase your servings of fruits, vegetables or dairy foods.
• Remember: Bigger isn’t better so don’t oversize your meal. It can change it from healthful to hazardous in just a few bites. Even better, choose the smallest portion size available or split a meal with a family member.
• Always choose low-fat milk or water with your meal even when eating out.
• Choose items that are grilled and baked over ones that are breaded and fried.

Fast food restaurants do offer quick and easy ways to eat when the schedule is packed. Just be sure to choose healthful options and read the nutritional information when you can.

Use our Health Powered Kids lesson, “Fast food alert” to help kids think about how to make better food and drink choices when eating at fast food restaurants.

For more information about understanding food labels, check out our Healthy Set Go blog, “How to read a food label”, by Liz Vander Laan, RD.

Riding a bike, skateboarding or playing a game of baseball at the park is a lot of fun, but accidents can happen. It’s important to wear the right equipment to avoid injuries. Using the wrong, or improperly fitted equipment is a major cause for injuries in playing games and sports.

Before wearing any protective equipment, you should always check it for proper fit and replace worn out equipment. For example, replace a child’s bike helmet if it has been in a bike accident or is damaged (cracked or dented) from being used.

Don’t forget to warm up before playing. Muscles that have not been warmed up the right way tend to be injured more easily.

• Start out with some light cardiovascular activities, such as easy jogging, jumping jacks, or brisk walking, to get your muscles moving and blood circulating.
• Follow your warm-up with some stretches. Stretching works best after a warm-up because your ligaments and tendons are more elastic (flexible) due to the increase in heat and blood flow to the muscle.
• Do not over do your play, game or sport. If you increase how often, how long or how hard you play too fast, you might see better performance at first, but this can lead to injuries later.

Use our Health Powered Kids lesson, “Staying safe during physical activity” to help kids think about the different ways they can keep themselves safe during sports or other activities.

For more information about keeping kids healthy during sports, check out our Healthy Set Go blog, “Time out! Don’t let kids play injured”, written by Paresh Ghodge, MD, CAQ.

Guided imagery is a simple, powerful technique that can have many health-related physical and emotional benefits. It can help people feel less nervous or upset, be less bothered by pain or achieve a goal such as an athletic or academic achievement.

Through guided imagery you can learn to work through turmoil from the inside out as you use your imagination to actually change how you are feeling and what you are focused on. Even very young children can begin to learn this skill by linking images in their minds with feelings and experiences.

One way to introduce guided imagery is to use a rubber band and ask your child to stretch it as far as it will go. Then point out that if we keep it in this position too long it will snap. Explain that the same thing is true for humans, we need to be able to relax, calm, down, and get rid of our tension in order to be well.

Guided imagery is a great tool to help with all different kinds of stress kids may face, including:

• Anxiety
•  Self-esteem
• Emotional health
• Difficulty showing empathy
• Social stress
• Low energy and lack of motivation

Use our Health Powered Kids lessons, “Guided Imagery: Create the state you want”  and “Guided imagery for younger children” to help kids learn more about the benefits of guided imagery.

You can also check out our Change to Chill™ Guided Imagery tips: http://www.changetochill.org/how-can-i/use-guided-imagery/

Going to the grocery store is an important step in serving kids healthy foods. The items we put in our shopping cart each week can boost kids’ health — and give them a positive attitude toward nutritious food.

But those tempting displays of tasty snacks and fruity drinks can make it easy to end up with a cart overloaded with stuff that doesn’t offer much nutritional punch.

Shopping for food can be a learning experience for your child. Talk about the different foods you see and encourage your child to pick out a new fruit or vegetable to try. With older kids, explain why you’re looking for whole grains or fresh produce. You can also read food labels together.

Check out these five rules for grocery shopping when you’re navigating the aisles:

1. Shop for products with five ingredients or less.
2. If sugar is one of the first five ingredients, don’t purchase this product.
3. If you can’t pronounce one or more of the ingredients on the ingredient list, don’t purchase the product.
4. If the product is advertised in the media, really listen to the messaging. Marketing can often be misleading.
5. Never go grocery shopping hungry!

Use our Health Powered Kids lesson, “Grocery store virtual tour”  to help kids learn more about how a grocery store is set up and how to choose the most healthful options in the aisles.

Interested in learning more about navigating healthy food choices at home and at the store? Register for our Health Powered Families™ classes at Cambridge Medical Center starting April 18. These hands-on classes are for kids ages 10-17. Call 763-688-6032 for more information.

[KMSP Fox 9, March 10, 2016] Did you know that the average bottle of soda has more sugar in it than the USDA says is good for you to consume in just one day? Allina Health’s Elizabeth Vander Laan, a registered dietician with the Abbott Northwestern Weight Loss Program talked about all the sugar in our diet we might not realize is there on Fox 9’s Jason show.

Is your preschooler refusing to eat anything other than chicken nuggets? Or would your toddler rather play than eat anything at all?

If children’s nutrition is a sore topic in your household, you’re not alone. Many parents worry about what their children eat — and don’t eat. While kids don’t always take to new foods easily or right away, most kids get plenty of variety and nutrition in their diets over the course of a week.

Try these tips that may help a child learn to like new foods. 

1. Offer new foods many times. It may take up to a dozen tries for a child to accept a new food.
2. Small portions = big benefits. Let children try small portions of new foods that you enjoy. Give them a small taste at first and be patient.
3. Be a good role model by trying new foods yourself. Describe tastes, textures and smells.
4. Offer only one new food at a time. Serve something that you know the child likes along with the new food. Offering too many new foods all at once can be overwhelming.
5. Offer new foods first, at the beginning of a meal, when everyone is the most hungry.
6. Serve food plain if that is important to the child. For example, instead of a macaroni casserole, try meatballs, pasta and a vegetable. Also, to keep different foods separated, try plates with sections. For some children the opposite works and serving a new food mixed in with a familiar item is helpful. Get to know the child’s preferences.

Use our Health Powered Kids lesson, “Picky Eating”  to understand the small steps you can take each day to help promote a lifetime of healthy eating.

Bonnie Baranek from the Health Powered Kids program in New Ulm visited first graders at St. Mary’s on Monday, November 9 to discuss issues such as feelings, self-control, warning signs, etc. She is representing the Health Powered Kids program. Click here to see the photos.

Check out our “Self-esteem and Body Image” lesson to help your children reflect on the messages they get and give about personal worth and value. Additional resources can be found at changetochill.org. Change to Chill provides free, easy-to-use information to help teens manage their stress in a healthy way.

Teaching your kids about good food habits and daily physical activity they will be well on their way to a healthy life. Easy to say, but sometimes not so easy to do!

Our busy lifestyles can be hard on our family’s health. Rushing to and from school and work can make it hard to find time to be physically active. We can also slip into the habit of choosing unhealthy snacks or spending our free time watching TV or in front of the computer.

However, these choices can be dangerous for our health and our children’s health – both now and in the long-term. That’s why it’s so important to stop, take stock and make a conscious decision to follow a healthy lifestyle.

Healthy living requires following certain habits and routines each and every day. It’s like a puzzle that you’ve put together. All the pieces are connected and when one piece is missing, the puzzle is not complete. For a healthy life, you do need to eat well, but there are other pieces of that puzzle that need to come together too, such as daily physical activity, washing your hands and bodies, and brushing your teeth.

Use our Health Powered Kids lesson, “Living a Healthy Life” to help your child understand what pieces of the puzzle make up a healthy lifestyle they can learn to love.

Have you ever eaten gluten? No, not glue — gluten! If you’ve ever eaten a piece of bread, a slice of pizza, or a bowl of cereal, chances are you have. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and sometimes oats.

Most of us eat food with gluten with no trouble. For those with celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity it needs to be avoided. Celiac disease damages the small intestine and keeps the body from using nutrients from food. It can cause gas, bloating and diarrhea. People may also have a headache and feel really tired. If not treated, it can affect growth and cause damage to the nervous system. It can also cause people to be malnourished.

It isn’t always clear which foods have gluten in them, and it can be very challenging to try to eat only foods that are gluten-free. People who have to eat this way get very good at reading nutrition fact labels to see if a food is gluten-free.

People who have food allergies, sensitivities or other restrictions often have to deal with others not understanding their situation. In social situations, such as birthday parties, it may be uncomfortable for children who have to eat special, gluten-free treats. Sometimes other people can be unkind about it, or put their friends at risk by not being careful.

Use our Health Powered Kids lesson, “The Dish on Gluten” to help your child understand why some people need to eat only gluten-free foods and to be kind to them rather than teasing or treating them differently.

Eating is a natural, healthy and pleasurable activity for satisfying hunger. However, in our fast-paced world, eating is often mindless and done at a hurried pace. It’s important we learn to slow down and enjoy our food. In fact, research points to at least three good health reasons to eat slowly and mindfully. These are:

1. Healthy weight. There is good evidence that eating slowly leads to eating less which leads to a healthier weight.
2. Better digestion. It takes our bodies time to break down food and take from it what we need. We can start the process off right by chewing well, which in turn leads to slower eating. More time between bites also gives time for our bodies to react to what we’ve already consumed.
3. Less stress. Eating slowly, and paying attention to our eating, can be a great form of relaxation and mindfulness. When we are in the moment, breathing deeply and fully, rather than rushing through a meal thinking about what we need to do next, we are taking good care of our whole selves, not just our bodies.

Remind young people to chew their food well and eat slowly. More time between bites gives time for our bodies to react to what we’ve already consumed, so we can digest our food better.

Use our Health Powered Kids lesson, “It’s Mealtime! Relax and enjoy” and Power Chargers for tips on eating slower at home.