Calling All Adults: Fat First!

Paradise greetings,

A rainy morning today. After the last couple of weeks of unusually cold, freezing weather, we need some liquid sunshine. This week we will be planning the new gardens for the new year.

Growing Healthy Kids Tip: Did you know that most of the fat calories we eat should be from GOOD fats, called UNSATURATED FATS? Unsaturated fats are in fish, nuts, olives, liquid vegetable oils like olive oil, canola oil, and sunflower oil, flax seeds, and avocados. Most of the fat we eat should come from these foods. One thing about nuts: since nuts' calories are primarily from fat, even though it is the good fat, if we - or kids - eat too many nuts we can quickly get too many fat calories. About 1/4 cup of most nuts has around 200 calories. Just a few walnuts provide an excellent snack!

Last Friday I visited the children at the Boys and Girls Club and shared some healthy snacks enjoyed by all (carrot sticks, walnuts, and organic bunny fruit snacks--yum). Afterwards everyone ran a couple of laps around in the fresh air. We planned our kayak adventure for next week and the kids decided on a healthy menu of tuna sandwiches on whole grain bread, oranges, and water. Several of these kids have never been on the water in a canoe or a kayak, so a great adventure is right around the corner! Our kayak partner, Mike Beck, reported that he was busy last week rescuing sea turtles from the dangerously cold Intercoastal waters. The kids will get to hear first-hand from him about his work while paddling and watching for egrets and manatees.

An observation from volunteering yesterday as a proctor at the state math competition hosted by Vero Beach High School (couldn't help notice all the soda machines placed strategically on campus): the number of obese adults chaperoning and volunteering. They were everywhere! It is my belief that adults must first address the problem of their own fat in order for kids to take them seriously. Maybe "Fat First" should be our new tag line. If you are a fat adult, then fix yours first by making one change a week to eat healthier and move more. I mean no disrespect to anyone, it's just that we can no longer ignore the problem. Has the term "obesity" lulled people into complacency about self-honesty? America, this is Mission Control, and We Have a Fat Problem. So, what's YOUR body mass index number?? If you are in the obese category (BMI 30 or higher), then how much weight do you need to lose to be one number smaller? Go to http://www.cdc.gov/ to find out!

Growing Healthy Kids - improving the health of kids, one garden and one child at a time.

To your perfect health.

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

Happy New Year!

Paradise greetings,

I'm watching the Rose Bowl Parade right now, enjoying all the marching bands and wonderful floats. I love a good parade, don't you?

Yesterday I stopped by Kayaks Etc. to see how our first kayak garden is growing. Kristen and Mike Beck had closed the shop a little early as they were out on the water somewhere on our beautiful Intercoastal Waterway enjoying the perfect 80 degree weather, paddling their way to the New Year.

What a wonderful launch it has been for Growing Healthy Kids. As I take a few days off to reflect on our accomplishments, I am in awe of the many kids whose lives we have touched. I am grateful for the lessons the children have taught me in my quest to make a difference for the millions of children at risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, bone and joint disorders, and more because they are not at healthy weights. A big piece of solving this challenge is that adults must first look at their own risks if they are overweight and take action to live healthier lives. We must lead by example. It is the only choice we have to alter the pediatric obesity epidemic.

Are you leading by example as we begin this New Year 2010? Have you asked yourself, "What is my number one health goal and what can I do everyday to achieve it?" Are you at a healthy weight and if not, when are you going to start getting there?

We have so many fun things ahead of us in 2010 as Growing Healthy Kids builds gardens with children, teaches new healthy cooking classes, and creates new alliances. For now, I am going to enjoy the rest of the Rose Bowl Parade and Al Roker's corny parade jokes...HAPPY NEW YEAR, my friends.

To your perfect health,

Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

Missing: One Cinnamon Basil Plant

Paradise greetings,

Here's the update on the first kayak garden in Indian River County. I stopped by Kayaks Etc. the other day to see Kristen Beck and check out the herb garden that the kids from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Indian River County planted. The first thing Kristen said to me was, "Someone stole the cinnamon basil -- the WHOLE PLANT!" Sure enough, someone dug it out of the kayak garden.

So, I need your help: BOLO (that's police talk for Be On the Look Out) for one beautiful, fragrant cinnamon basil plant.

The kayak garden is looking good! Kristen has already harvested lettuce, basil and cilantro. The beans will be coming next.

What I love about the kayak garden is that every northbound car on US 1 driving through Vero Beach sees it and it may plant a seed with those who see it about gardening for fun, recycling things you don't normally recycle (like old kayaks) and creating garden art wherever we are.

Now, off to find Kristen a new cinnamon basil plant!

Growing Healthy Kids - improving the health - and lives - of kids, one garden and one child at a time.

To your perfect health,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

Our First Kayak Garden

Paradise greetings,

Can you believe this is already day 4 of the Growing Healthy Kids blog?

This afternoon I attended the Christmas party for American Association of University Women. In conversation, I described the Growing Healthy Kids project, planting gardens for the kids, getting the kids out kayaking once a week, and other fun stuff. She got very excited about it and went off to tell another woman about the project who said she has just seen one of our gardens. Yippy!!

We need to deliberately choose to grow healthy kids. It is NOT OK that kids eat too many calories, especially excess fat calories. I guess everyone thinks it is OK because I sure don't see the Florida Department of Health or major employers or health insurance companies doing much about this increasing epidemic of children who weigh twice what they should. They probably think they're doing something, but what??

This weekend Growing Healthy Kids particpated in the amazing Christmas party for 100 unmatched kids (kids yet to be matched with a mentor) in Youth Guidance. We had a blast planting little pots of parsley for the kids to take home. I couldn't help and observe that so many kids there would benefit from the increased exercise and the weekly healthier eating lessons we are doing.

What breaks the heart of God must break the heart of man...

Last month, some Boys and Girls Clubs kids met me at our kayak partner and we transformed an old, leaky sit-on-top kayak into a spectacular garden container. Mike Beck with Kayaks Etc. cut off the top, moved it next to U.S.1 in front of their shop, and we filled it with dirt and compost. Then the kids and I planted an herb garden in it! I'll go by this week and take a picture what it looks likes now and share it with you! It's such an awesome garden. '

The idea is to recycle and repurpose things into garden containers. Create garden art wherever you are!

Let's teach kids to think outside the box - and play in the dirt! It does a body good!

To your perfect health,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

What a Difference a Year Makes

Paradise greetings,

One year ago, I had no idea that I was going to start a non-profit organization to build gardens for kids served by Boys and Girls Clubs of Indian River County. One year ago, I had an 8-5 job and was working in disease management for a physicians' practice, tracking data, teaching patients, and giving talks on diabetes and obesity.

Earlier this year I made the decision to start Growing Healthy Kids because of the overweight kids I see at every school and every community event. I see the awful food choices kids are given in school. Teachers and school social workers have started asking me for help with kids who are depressed and withdrawn because they are ashamed of their excess weight. I talk with frustrated parents who say they can't afford to eat healthy and I say to them, yes you can, I will teach you.

Growing Healthy Kids is about "fun with a purpose". We are starting to plant gardens around the county, including our first kayak garden with our partner, Kayaks Etc. Every week we are teaching lessons at the garden. Every week kids are actively learning how to make a healthy snack using ingredients that we are growing together in the gardens.

Every week the lessons I am learning make me grateful for my life, for my wonderful mother who made sure we had healthy, fresh foods to eat, and for my health. So many of the kids I am now gardening with here in Indian River County, Florida have grown up on fast foods and highly processed foods. My anecdotal observation is that these kids seem to explode with happiness when they taste a salsa made from freshly picked, chemical-free tomatoes. They're like starving dogs who've had to beg for table scraps for years and just got tossed a fresh wild salmon.

The foods many kids eat are full of refined sugars with no nutritional value but lots of calories, refined grains stripped of all the dietary fiber and vitamins that nature gave us, and saturated and trans fats that are driving the obesity epidemic and creating younger candidates for heart attacks and Big Pharma. Two in 3 American adults are overweight or obese and already one in 3 kids is overweight or obese. This must change.

Our kids' environment must change. We must change the food choices kids have and did I tell you that we're going to have fun doing it? We're going to plant a lot of gardens!

This is why I have created Growing Healthy Kids. Because NO MATTER WHAT, kids need real foods, not highly processed foods. Because NO MATTER WHAT, kids need some physical activity every day away from computers and texting. I have partnered with Kristen and Mike Beck at Kayaks Etc. so we can erase kids' nature deficit while they learn how to paddle a kayak and stretch some muscles they don't use playing handheld games.

Growing Healthy Kids - improving the health - and lives - of children, one garden and one child at a time.

To your perfect health,
Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids