Nutrition is the BIGGEST battle with overweight kids today -right up there with no activity! I love hearing progressions in our school food system! Read below.

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School nutrition: Healthier ingredients, more education for 2010-11

School nutrition has advanced for the 2010-11 school year as parents, children, and government programs push healthy menu options.

By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, Staff writer / August 18, 2010

Schools searching for ways to improve school nutrition are starting to get sneaky.

“Replace three-quarters of the fat in baked goods with pureed beans and the kids don’t even notice!” according to a tip from an awarding-winning elementary school in Idaho.

That delicious-smelling breakfast sausage? It’s turkey. And that pizza crust that doesn’t have a hint of healthy-looking brown in its coloring? Fooled ya’ – chances are it’s made of nutritious whole grains. Even salads are getting a makeover, with cafeterias gradually increasing the percentage of heartier greens mixed into the crispy iceberg lettuce kids are used to.

The School Nutrition Association (SNA) reports progress as students head back to school. According to a new survey completed by nutrition directors in 538 districts around the country:

• 95 percent are increasing whole-grain offerings
• 90 percent are providing more fresh fruits and vegetables
• 69 percent are reducing sodium
• 66 percent are reducing added sugar
• 67 percent of those with vending services are making healthier drinks more available

Among the new menu items schools are serving up for 2010-11: jicama, star fruit, sweet potato puffs, collard greens, edamame, egg-white omelets, and fish tacos.

A new website from the SNA, www.TrayTalk.org, educates parents about healthy school meals and highlights innovative approaches around the country.

Along with sneaking healthier ingredients into foods, schools are trying more open tactics.

In Somerville, Mass., school children find their science lessons linked to the “Vegetable of the Month” campaign, featuring colorful posters with nutritional and cultural information on everything from beans to broccoli (“Broccoli was invented by an Italian family by crossing cauliflower seeds with pea seeds.”) read the rest here.

I’ve been training too hard! Check out this new NEWS!

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New Formula Gives First Accurate Peak Heart Rate for Women

ScienceDaily (June 29, 2010) — Women who measure their peak heart rates for exercise will need to do some new math as will physicians giving stress tests to patients.

A new formula based on a large study from Northwestern Medicine provides a more accurate estimate of the peak heart rate a healthy woman should attain during exercise. It also will more accurately predict the risk of heart-related death during a stress test.

“Now we know for the first time what is normal for women, and it’s a lower peak heart rate than for men,” said Martha Gulati, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and preventive medicine and a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine. “Using the standard formula, we were more likely to tell women they had a worse prognosis than they actually did.”

Gulati is the lead author of a study published June 28 in the journal Circulation.

“Women are not small men,” Gulati added. “There is a gender difference in exercise capacity a woman can achieve. Different physiologic responses can occur. ” Gulati was the first to define the normal exercise capacity or fitness level for women in a 2005 study.

The old formula — 220 minus age — used for almost four decades, is based on studies of men. The new formula for women, based on the new research, is 206 minus 88 percent of age.

At age 50, the original formula gives a peak rate of 170 beats per minute for men and women. The new women’s formula gives a maximum heart rate of 162 beats for women. Many men and women use their peak heart rate multiplied by 65 to 85 percent to determine their upper heart rate when exercising.

“Before, many women couldn’t meet their target heart rate,” Gulati said. “Now, with the new formula, they are actually meeting their age-defined heart rate.” read the rest here.

it’s 206 – 88 percent of your age!

Despite all the information out there – we are still getting fatter as a nation! What I find interesting – is that it’s true…most parents fail to see how FAT their kids are. They allow them to eat crap, stay on the computer all day and get lazy. See below.

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By MARY CLARE JALONICK (AP) – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — Most parents think childhood obesity is a problem. Just not their kids’ problem.

An annual obesity report by two public health groups includes more bad news — obesity rates increased in 28 states last year — and also a new survey of parental attitudes about the issue. The survey shows an increasing awareness of obesity and its threat to public health, though that knowledge has yet to translate into results.

“This report shows that the country has taken bold steps to address the obesity crisis in recent years, but the nation’s response has yet to fully match the magnitude of the problem,” said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Trust for America’s Health, which writes the annual report with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The new survey shows that 84 percent of parents believe their children are at a healthy weight, even though nearly a third of children and teens are considered obese or overweight. Still, 80 percent of those polled by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and American Viewpoint said childhood obesity is a significant and growing problem.

Obesity in adults is defined as a body mass index of 30 or more, while overweight is a body mass index between 25 and 30.

Mississippi continued its six-year reign as the country’s fattest state in the study’s yearly rankings, along with the highest rates of physical inactivity and hypertension. The state also has the second highest rate of diabetes.

Last year, four states — Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia — had obesity rates of over 30 percent. This year, four more states have that distinction, bringing the total to eight states with rates over 30 percent. Those states were Louisiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

The District of Columbia was the only area to see a decline in adult obesity rates.

The rise in obesity rates has been sharp in the last 20 years. More than two-thirds of states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent.

The report also details racial disparities in obesity, showing that obesity rates for blacks and Latinos were higher than for whites in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

Get off the couch!

YES! I love deals! Especially delicious deals!

Check out the details here!

No Duh! This has been the norm for ages…however, I think that as kids grow into their teens, they are less bullied for being overweight…especially since many of their peers are overweight.

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(Health.com) — Children in Grades 3 through 6 who are obese are more likely to be bullied than their normal-weight peers, a new study has found.

No one who has attended grade school — or who has even the slightest familiarity with children — will be surprised by these findings. What is surprising, however, is that obese children are bullied more often even if they possess qualities that can discourage bullies, such as having good social skills or doing well in school.

“When we started this study, I really suspected that we might find that the obesity or overweight might not be the driving force,” says the lead author of the study, Julie Lumeng, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. “What we found is that it didn’t matter. No matter how good your social skills, if you were overweight or obese you were more likely to be bullied.”

In the study, which appears this week in the journal Pediatrics, Lumeng and her colleagues followed more than 800 children — all born in 1991 — from 10 cities across the U.S. When the children were in the third, fifth, and sixth grades, the researchers surveyed teachers, mothers, and the children themselves about whether they were bullied, and also surveyed the adults about the children’s social skills. They then compared these responses with the children’s body mass index, a simple ratio of height and weight.

Overall, kids who were obese were 65 percent more likely to be bullied than their peers of normal weight; overweight kids were 13 percent more likely to be bullied, although that finding was not statistically significant, the study notes. This pattern persisted even when the researchers took into account other factors that are associated with both obesity and being bullied, such as coming from a low-income family or doing poorly in school.

Still, the findings don’t rule out the possibility that being overweight and being bullied share a common, underlying cause, says Matthew N. Davis, M.D., a primary care physician and the director of the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

“There’s always been the question in the back of people’s minds about whether there was another factor involved which was related to both bullying and obesity,” says Davis, who was not involved in Lumeng’s study.

Sylvia Rimm, Ph.D., a clinical professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, in Cleveland, Ohio, suggests that the low self-esteem of overweight children may make them targets for their peers. read the full story here.

Get active with your kids!