Month: March 2012

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Anti Bullying Resources from #VetoViolence Twitter Chat

Last week, I attended the #VetoViolence Twitter Chat. It was hosted by the CDC Injury Center and attended by a lot of experts in the field, practitioners in schools and youth centers as well as parents. (Many of us fall into at least one, if not more, of those categories.)  The discussion was informative and hopeful; I won’t try to reiterate it here – but I did want to share some of the resources that came up during the discussion:

Learning ZoneXpress had a few items to add to the list:

  • 7 Ways to Block a Cyberbully DVD – details seven effective strategies for dealing with a digital bully. (Includes video for students and adults)
  • Teen Cyberbullying Investigated Book –a guide to help young people understand what cyberbullying is and is not, recognize when they may be its victims or perpetrators, and learn tactics for successfully dealing with it.

If you have a resource to share, please let us know or consider submitting it to the StopBullying.gov database of resources.

 

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Think Healthy Thursday: Active Lives Move Us Toward Better Health

Over the past 30 years we’ve increased portion sizes on our plates, increased the amount of high calorie fast food we eat, and we sit more as we text, tweet, surf and stream via technology. It is increasingly important to restore the balance of food we take in and the physical activity we exert.

Creating movement within an everyday routine is the most effective way to keep moving. To reap maximum benefits from moving, most people need to be active a minimum of 30 minutes a day if they are 18 or older and 60 minutes a day if they are between six and 17 years old. Be sure to exercise five or six days a week. You don’t need a gym or even a class to keep moving, you just need to think about moving. Escalator or stairs? Stairs! Close parking spot or back of the parking lot? Back of the lot!

Aaron Leventhal, owner and trainer at FIT Training Studio in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, offers his take on the importance of physical activity. Leventhal draws on his experience both as a professional athlete and as a trained fitness expert. “We all need movement. At any age, movement and exercise are essential to a healthy mental and physical lifestyle. At younger ages, it’s important to teach and develop these habits so they can be practical throughout life.”

First Lady Michelle Obama’s personal goal is to help get America’s kids healthy. In February 2010, Mrs. Obama launched the Let’s Move initiative, a comprehensive program designed to help kids eat healthier, move more often and to integrate all levels of community to achieve these goals.

Leventhal concurs, “The best thing to do for kids is to continue to expose them to new sports. For kids, playing a new sport should be just that, more play, less skill or about 70% play and 30% skill. This keeps kids involved and moving. Over time, they will learn skill, but the point is to peak interests and promote movement and fun. For kids who are not active in sports, exercise or movement should provide the same factors as a sport does; it should provide a form of competition and camaraderie.”

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Think Healthy Thursday: Meals with Kids Getting Tedious? Crunch a Color!

Having trouble getting the kids to eat what’s on their plate at dinnertime? Or worse, finding yourself limiting meals to butter noodles and PB &J just to keep the peace? We have found a great game that makes it fun for kids to eat better foods and a wider variety of foods.  It doesn’t involve nagging, tears or even a raised voice.

Crunch a Color is a meal time game that offers kids an opportunity to win points for healthy food choices. Specifically, kids win points for eating a balanced and colorful meal. They can even pick up bonus points for good manners and trying new foods.

The developer of the game, Jennifer Tyler Lee, is a mom herself. She grew tired of a life of pasta and peas – and started to develop a card game that would encourage her own kids to increase their comfort zone and expand their palates. We’ve found that while the game is definitely geared at younger kids – there’s just enough catchy competition to raise the eyebrow and interest of a teen sibling too.

Crunch a Color has received some nice media attention too. It made the prestigious list of Dr. Toy’s 100 Best Children’s Products of 2011 and celebrity chef and school lunch crusader Jamie Oliver touts it on his Food Revolution website.

As a nice bonus – Crunch a Color proudly supports non-profit children’s nutrition programs, including Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and FoodCorps. You can feel good knowing that your purchase is helping other kids have fun eating healthy too!

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Something for everyone! March Facebook Promotion!

We are grateful that you are a fans of Learning ZoneXpress on Facebook. You all play a key role in our mission to spread important nutrition messages to as many people as we can. We would like your help in expanding that reach even further to reach our latest goal of 1,000 new fans!

New fans will receive a free 54321+8 Bookmark. If you help spread the word and increase our fan base, we’ll offer you current fans the following rewards.

We currently have 6,963 fans!

  • If you help us increase by 250 to 7,213, we will offer an extra free downloadable poster.
  • If you help us increase by 500 to 7,463, we will offer the extra downloadable poster and a special 10% off coupon code exclusive to our Facebook page.
  • If you help us increase by 1,000 to 7,963, we will offer the free downloadable poster, a special 10% off coupon code, and a chance to win one of ten $25 gift certificates!

What do you say? Think we can do it?

Help us spread the word at https://www.facebook.com/learningzonexpress.

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Ride2School Day 2012

 

Ride2School is a program that was started in Australia, and it’s one that we may want to join this year.

The Ride2School Program work with families, communities, policy-makers and partner organisations so that students are able to ride, walk, skate or scoot to school.

What does Ride2School stand for?
* Helping kids build the skills, know-how and confidence to ride or walk to school, and beyond.
What’s in it for schools?
* We offer practical, and wherever possible tailored, strategies, guidance and advice to create active, healthy kids in-school and out-of-school.
* Member schools will enjoy a reputation for offering active, healthy learning opportunities.

The amount of resources this site provides makes it easy to participate. From how to get the local media involved to informing parents and addressing barriers, it’s all covered.

Ride 2 School Day is a great first step to promote activity in your community. As you begin to celebrate these events, you can move to more habit creating things like Walking Wheeling Wednesdays.

Make every Wednesday a Walking Wheeling Wednesday! The aim of nominating one day of the week as a day of active travel, is to create longer-term, habitual changes in active travel frequency. You can make each Walking Wheeling Wednesday as big or small as you like. It is a great way to keep the momentum going throughout the year and establish an active travel culture.

March 23rd, 2012, 150,000+ students will participate in Australia. Think we can coordinate an event by then? The website has everything we need to do it. It has information and resources for everyone involved including parents, teachers, students, and volunteers! There really is something for everyone. What a great way to get the entire community involved in physical health!

It doesn’t have to be just schools either. Pick a day where you challenge everyone in the office to walk or bike to work. See how many people you can get involved.  With the weather warming up, I think next Friday is going to be a very successful Ride2School (or work)  Day!

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Stop the Presses – LZX promotes "What's on MyPlate?" Day with free MyPlate Sampler Pack

March 8th is a big day in the world of MyPlate. As we announced earlier this week..

Learning ZoneXpress announced today that they are teaming up with the nearly 6,000 USDA partners to make March 8, 2012 “What’s on MyPlate?” Day, to heighten public awareness of the importance of choosing foods for a healthy meal. Learning ZoneXpress is committed to promoting a diet that reflects the latest recommendations in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and highlights the message behind the new MyPlate food icon.

However, we got to thinking – that’s just not enough, so we’re planning a fun contest to help engage kids, families, teachers – everyone to put MyPlate into practice. On March 8th, we will be inviting LZX friends, fans, and colleagues to send us a picture of their plate. For a limited time – we will provide an entry form for participants to upload photos of their very own “MyPlate.” We will post our favorites on our blog and Facebook page. All entrants will receive a MyPlate Sampler Pack.

Watch our Facebook page for updates. We’ll be posting a link to our entry form tomorrow morning!

The MyPlate Sampler Pack is a fun grab bag of our MyPlate products. Your grab bag could contain any combination of the following:

 

 

 

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Movie Monday: What's On MyPlate?

As you may know, this Thursday is “What’s On MyPlate?” Day. To celebrate, Learning ZoneXpress has teamed up with thousands of fellow USDA National Strategic Partners to help promote healthy eating choices.

We have also just produced a new “What’s On MyPlate?” DVD, and we thought it was perfect timing to unveil it. This video uses the MyPlate icon and guidelines to show viewers how to build a healthy plate!

 

To learn more about “What’s On MyPlate?” Day, read our full press release here.

 

 

 

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Think Healthy Thursday: Habit, not cost, lead to healthy eating

You want to be healthy. But you’re trying to keep to a budget. Recent research from Research Triangle Park International indicates that cost is not necessarily a definitive factor in choosing fruit and vegetables. Shopping habits, however, so evidentially play a major role…

In addition, participants who made six shopping trips per month ate more fruit and vegetables than those who shopped an average of once a week, the study said.

The study also found the study participants who shopped in stores, co-ops or farmers’ markets they considered convenient and offered high levels of quality and selection were more likely to eat three or more servings of fruit and vegetables daily.

However, cost was not found to be a factor in how many servings of fruits and vegetables participants ate. The study found those who listed cost as a barrier to purchasing fruits and vegetables ate the same amount of produce as those who did not, Blitstein said.

It’s interesting to hear how the perception and reality differ. It also helps make the case that habit is a strong predictor – and helps make the case that it’s worth the effort to build healthy habits from a young age. To help build healthy habits, Learning ZoneXpress offers a range of fun, educational nutritional tools for all ages:

  • LANA the Iguana – is a cuddly plush puppet that introduces young children to new, healthy foods.
  • FACS Curriculum – includes videos, lesson plans and projects that help teach healthy lifestyles to older students. FACS instills good habits and teaches students to spread the word of nutrition to their families and workplaces.
  • WorkHealthy Xpress – is a range of products that promote healthy eating in the workplace.