Eating For Health

Snacks – who doesn’t love to snack? When I visit foreign countries, I am amazed at how little some people snack in other countries.   They eat well at meals, but just don’t seem to snack much.   Not true of Americans, we love our snacks.   About 57% of us enjoy a snack at least once a day.   About 31% say they snack a few days a week.   Why do people snack?   Some say because they are hungry.   And that may be true, especially for growing children and teenagers.   Some are craving sweets and others are craving a salty snack.   Some people think snacking is bad for your health.   But is it?   Yes, some snacks like Cheetos are not a healthy choice.   But many snacks can be good for your health.   Children in particular, need snacks.   They have small stomachs and should have snacks between meals.   Pre-school kids should have morning and afternoon snacks.   School-age kids should have an afternoon snack. ...

Look around and you will see so many kids who are overweight.   Often these kids also have parents who are overweight.   CDC reports that childhood obesity in the USA has become a very serious problem.   Being overweight puts adults and children at risk for poor health.   How many kids in the US are obese? For kids ages 2-19 years of age: 18.5% are obese which equates to 13.7 million obese kids in the USA 13.9 % of kids ages 2-5 are obese 18.4% of 6-11-year olds are obese And 1 out of 5 or 20.6% of 12-19-year olds are obese Moms (and Dads) play an important role in helping prevent obesity in their kids.   Medical Press has a good article discussing 5 healthy habits of Moms that can reduce obesity risk in their kids.   The article published by the journal BMJ discusses research about 17,000 female nurses and their 24,289 kids and looked at five healthy habits of the moms.   These 5 healthy habits lowered their kids risk of being ove...