Multitudes of Thoughts --All Fierce

Our Healthy Choices poster image "isn’t about healthy choices", one third grade teacher writes us. "It’s about empowering children; allowing them to be free to invent smoothies, create fresh fruit snacks, vegetable dips, salads that they want to eat anytime, anywhere." How true that is. The childrens' behavior changes when they see fresh, healthy food every day. Many parents are coming to the same conclusion about our Healthy Choices image. One mother tells us, "After I hung up your Healthy Choices flyer in my kitchen, my children felt empowered to do their own thing for their school lunches and weekend meals. There's no more arguing about veggies and fruits. They don't grab a bagel anymore as they go out the door to school. They are making salads and smoothies for the first time ever. Frittatas are really popular on Sunday mornings around our house. For Saturday mid-day snacks our fruit/vegetable bin in the refrigerator is often emptied. My life is a whole lot easier with this reminder of the freedom to choose."

"I wasn't surprised to learn that your Healthy Choices flyer is hanging in my children's classrooms at school. In fact, their teachers have incorporated this image in their writing program. After my children write stories about their holiday eating and exercising, they take those stories to class and compare their work with the rest of the class. They love it."

A recent study of over 26 school-based intervention programs across the nation did not surprise us. This study reveals that when classroom nutrition education (85%) was paired with parental involvement at home (62%) the school-based intervention program was a successful one. Having our Healthy Choices image in a school-based intervention program for obesity as well as in the family kitchen we see classroom nutrition education morph into a high-impact strategy program. What is stunning about this is that it is immediately clear that it doesn't cost families extra to change their behavior. Our Healthy Choices image operates as a link joining the efforts of the school and the family kitchen in creating a high quality nutrition program. The students are reminded that they are free to create their meals from the many healthy choices around them in their own community. They can help create tasty lunches for themselves and can invent interesting mid-afternoon snacks for themselves. We see this same kind of thing happening in children's hospitals. Recent studies show that family involvement in hospitals can help speed recovery and shorten stays, increase satisfaction and even reduce malpractice claims, potentially cutting costs.

Behavior change is cheap and easy when you link school programs to family programs. That's because relationsips are formed. Families are connecting with the school, supporting each other and feeling accountable to each other. When children can decide what smoothie to make, what kind of salad to put together, or what vegetable snack to create, they bring that news to school. They tell their peers what they created in their own kitchen and this is what connects them with their own medical destiny without them really knowing it.

David Katz MD recently wrote, "...for decades we have failed to translate our knowledge of disease prevention into the power of routine action." And, Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University states. "we’re less tempted by unhealthful foods when they’re out of sight. We eat more healthful foods when they’re kept in plain view." What these two scientists are saying add even more to the importance of our Healthy Choices poster image up in the kitchen and the school classroom. Perhaps this is the one reason mothers tell us that our image keeps the children focused on healthy foods.

Healthy Living Initiative