Yes, Your Son is Eating Vegetables

Last week, this was part of a Reuters news article ("NIH Obesity Plan focuses on Real-World Research") about obesity in America:

"Obesity-related diseases account for nearly 10 percent of U.S. medical spending, or an estimated $147 billion a year.

Studies have shown that obese children are more likely to stay obese as adults, and that they develop chronic conditions at younger ages, burdening the healthcare system."

Obesity is a result of an energy imbalance. Getting back into balance with the foods we eat and the daily exercise our bodies desperately want and need is really simple when you know what to do. Nearly 17% of America's children are obese. THIS MUST CHANGE. Enter, Growing Healthy Kids, stage left:

At the GIANT SALAD PARTY held by Growing Healthy Kids this week, one parent came to observe her two children who were participants. When I spoke with her, she was speechless because she was watching her younger son from a distance and HE WAS EATING HIS VEGETABLES!!! She was just beside herself with joy seeing a new habit forming in her younger son known for never eating vegetables, a great source of dietary fiber.

This kind of response is what the Growing Healthy Kids movement based in Vero Beach, Florida is all about. Showing kids how to eat great food, some of which is grown right in their own neighborhood, and teaching them things they can then teach their parents. All kids deserve access to healthy foods, not the junk and sugar and salt that stops up their digestive and cardiovascular systems. Ask any pediatrician in this country if they are seeing kids with digestive problems due to too little dietary fiber and too much sugar and you'll hear a resounding "YES" across the land.

For the parent who was speechless this week watching her son have an amazing time helping prepare a salad and a simple vinaigrette dressing, then eating all of it and asking for seconds, I say, "Now help me teach other parents how simple and affordable it is to eat healthy when the kids know what to do." Healthy eating is key to getting to and staying at a healthy weight.

Growing Healthy Kids is a movement to erase childhood obesity from America. We teach kids and adults how to eat better, eat economically, and enjoy locally grown foods when and where available AND move more, all while having fun. As we like to say at all our educational programs, "Having fun IS the best way to learn new stuff!"

Here's to your perfect health,
Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

To support our national education work, please go to www.RedCarpetCompetition.com and click on "Vero Beach".

www.GrowingHealthykids.blogspot.com

www.GrowingHealthyKids.me - click on "store" for the new Growing Healthy Kids Get Shot by Ella-designed shirts as featured in the April 2011 issue in Vero Beach Magazine and debuted at A FUSION OF FASHION AND FUN.

Growing Healthy Kids goes to Imagine Schools at South Vero

Boy, was today fun! First, we had a TON of liquid sunshine drop in for a visit. For you northerners, that is Florida-speak for RAIN.

Then, this afternoon the awesome kids from Indian River Charter High School's Kiwanis Key Club who are participating in the Growing Healthy Kids' service leadership project presented a most excellent program for the children at Imagine Schools at South Vero (www.myimagineschools-verobeach.com). We had the kids eating salad, making vinaigrette dressings, and jumping up and down with joy. WHAT FUN!


Let me tell you a story about one little girl at this afternoon's event. She was 30-35 pounds overweight. At the beginning of the party she said to me rather defiantly, "I'm not eating that." During the course of the project, she changed her mind and tried the salad at the gentle urging of the 2 high school girls working with her. Next time I stopped by her table, she was wearing a GIANT SMILE while eating a bowl of Kevin's greens with the balsamic dressing she helped to make.

The point is that kids CAN change their attitudes AND their eating habits, when we let them. That one little girl can now teach others.

First of all, thank you to all the children at Imagine School-YOU'RE AWESOME! Thanks to Liz Santiago, Kiwanis Key Club sponsor, for helping put it all together. A big thank you for all the kids from the charter high school - YOU ROCK!! Thanks to Jonathan Sternberg, principal at Imagine Schools, for allowing the high school kids to teach your children fun, creative ways to eat healthy and be active. Thanks to Kevin O'Dare of Osceola Organics for donating the beautiful spring mix of fresh, locally grown greens - THE KIDS LOVED THEM!

Growing Healthy Kids is a movement which, beginning in Indian River County, Florida, is reversing childhood obesity through knowledge, skills, and practice of healthy habits. Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. teaches kids and adults how to eat healthier and get moving. We can and will reverse childhood obesity in America because FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.

In gratitude,
Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

www.GrowingHealthyKids.blogspot.com
www.GrowingHealthyKids.me

To learn more how you can support our 2011 education projects, go to www.RedCarpetCompetition.com and click on "Vero Beach".

Growing Healthy Kids Partnership with Cindy Ashton Helps Kids Live Their Dreams NOW

It just keeps getting better! With your help, Growing Healthy Kids is teaching kids and their families how to eat healthier and move more so they get to (and stay at) healthy weights. This is part of the Growing Healthy Kids' strategy for reversing childhood obesity in America. Growing Healthy Kids' incredibly talented friend, Cindy Ashton, has partnered with us as one of the 6 charities she is highlighting on her 2011 Red Carpet Dreaming Tour! How cool is that! With Cindy's support and help, all kinds of people across America and Canada will learn from Growing Healthy Kids about how children need access to healthy foods and simple ways to eat smarter.

Here's what you need to know now if you are concerned about children's health issues. www.RedCarpetCompetition.com.

Tell everyone you know who loves to sing, who is under 25 years old, and who lives within a 100 mile radius of Vero Beach (that includes Orlando, Lake Wales, Port St. Lucie, West Palm Beach, Melbourne, Okeechobee, and Fort Lauderdale). Send them this message: ENTER THE COMPETITION!!! Join us when Cindy is in Vero Beach this June to help us teach the United States and Canada (let's get real, the whole WORLD, thanks to high calorie fast food establishments like McDonald's and Burger King) that it is not OK for children to be eating a bazillion more calories a day than they need to be healthy.

GOT IT??? Check it out...www.RedCarpetCompetition.com.

Together, we are teaching kids and adults how to reverse childhood obesity. Because failure is not an option...

The Growing Healthy Kids movement is reversing childhood obesity, one child and one garden at a time.

To your perfect health,

Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

wwww.GrowingHealthyKids.me

Balsamic Vinaigrette will Spring You Into Health!

One way to improve the health of America's children and reverse the childhood obesity epidemic which is already bringing older adult diseases like type 2 diabetes into many children's world is to teach the adults.

At THE GIANT SALAD PARTIES (TM) developed by Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. we teach kids -- of all ages -- how to eat smarter and healthier. The key thing is we ALWAYS make it fun! Here is one of the recipes we are currently featuring at Growing Healthy Kids' educational events in Indian River County, Florida. Please DO try this at home with your own kids.

MIX together:
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 Tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
sea salt
freshly ground pepper

WHISK IN: 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

SERVE with a salad of locally grown vegetables like the ones I use that Nat Rew and Rebecca and Mark Hornbuckle are growing at Veggies of Vero (www.veggiesofvero.com).

Are you and your kids ready to learn more about healthy eating?? Then JOIN ME at The Club at Vero on Saturday, March 26 from 2 to 5 PM for SPRING INTO SPRING, an expo and business networking event. Michael Gifford (he's the one in the picture giving me a FABULOUS chair massage at the Growing Healthy Kids Variety Store) will be giving complementary chair massages and I will be teaching how you can easily and economically SPRING INTO HEALTH using recipes such as the Balsamic Vinagrette recipe above.

For information on vendor tables, call Barbara Petrillo at 772-205-7133 or email her at barb4jewels@yahoo.com.

Growing Healthy Kids is a movement to improve the health - and lives - of America's chldren, one child and one garden at a time. Because failure to halt, reverse, and prevent childhood obesity is not an option.

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

photo credit: Ella Chabot, Get Shot by Ella

Childhood Obesity Organization gets new Youth Voice

Today is an exciting day. In a couple of hours we will hold the first-of-its-kind training in Florida to give youth a voice in halting,reversing, and preventing childhood obesity. In a unique collaboration between Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. and the Kiwanis Key Clubs, we begin engaging and mobilizing high school students in the recently funded GROWING HEALTHY KIDS: OUR HEALTH, OUR LIVES, OUR VOICE project in Indian River County, Florida.

This second semester service leadership project is one of the current round of projects funded by Youth Service America. We will keep you posted as the project progesses.

GROWING HEALTHY KIDS is a movement to improve the health - and lives - of America's children, one child and one garden at a time.

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

Growing Healthy Kids Restores Energy Balance to Children's Health (and gives notice that childhood obesity has got to go!!)

Growing Healthy Kids teaches kids and adults that "small stuff matters" in its educational programs and workshops about healthy eating and physical activity. We recommend you start at the beginning with step one: assess your own weight and find out your own Body Mass Index. Are YOU at a healthy weight?? Go to www.cdc.gov to find the online BMI calculator for adults (height and weight) and kids (height, weight, age, and sex). If we are going to restore the energy balance for kids (to get them eating the right amount of food for the energy they use and need to maintain their bodies in tip-top condition), we better know where we stand. With 2 in 3 adults overweight or obese, who will mentor kids about how to get to a healthy weight if all they see is fat adults?

Help Growing Healthy Kids teach, empower, and inspire kids AND adults how to halt, reverse, and prevent childhood obesity. Join us next Thursday at STAX Restaurant at our MEET THE DESIGNERS party to follow-up our first annual event held last week at Windsor Beach Club. Your preregistration for the MEET THE DESIGNERS party is kindly requested by the restaurant, please go to

Event management for Growing Healthy Kids Celebrates with a "Meet the Designers" Party powered by Eventbrite

Join the brilliant designers who are collaborating with Growing Healthy Kids to make a difference in the health - and lives - of America's children, one child and one garden at a time.

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

"A Magical Afternoon" for Growing Healthy Kids

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of the first annual event, A FUSION OF FASHION AND FUN, for Growing Healthy Kids! We are raising awareness about how to improve the quality of foods that children are eating at home, at school, at day cares, and at afterschool programs. One of the things I asked attendees at A FUSION OF FASHION AND FUN to do is to call the principal of the elementary school closest to where you live or work and schedule a visit to have breakfast or lunch. Then let me know what you would do to improve the quality of what kids are eating. Then go outside and plant some seeds and watch them grow!

Thank you to everyone who attended A FUSION OF FASHION AND FUN! Thank you for being part of our first annual event. Thank you for daring to have the courage to be part of the solution to the childhood obesity challenge in Indian River County, Florida.

Special thank you's go to:
Debbie DeBie for her incredible work as event planner - we couldn't have done it without you!
Barbara Petrillo (http://www.barb4jewels.com/) and Ella Chabot (http://www.shotbyella.com/) for their incredible designs of clothing and jewelry that were featured as inspirations and infusions of the positive. Your collaborations and electric creativity are the spark for the FUSION, the FUN, and the FASHIONS that everyone will clamoring to wear!
Elton Thomas for being the Master of Ceremonies and for coordinating a beautiful and elegant fashion show
Kim George for providing http://www.irculture.com/ as the host website for event information and tickets

Donna Anselmo of Bold Marketing Solutions for handling the event's media relations
Pritti Prakash for introducing me to Elton Thomas (http://www.splashonefm.com/)
Karen Swanson, Karen Frank, and Cindy Hejlik for helping plan the event and to Brian Frank for helping with day of event logistics
STAX Restaurant for hosting our planning meetings and keeping our water glasses filled and great appetizers on the table
Windsor of Florida for inviting Growing Healthy Kids to host its first annual event at the Windsor Beach Club and to Chef Brian of Windsor for your beautiful and delicious foods
Vero Beach Magazine for writing about our event in your January 2011 issue (thanks to your article, we may be working this semester with the UCF School of Nursing to help educate nurses!)
Youth Guidance Mentoring & Activities Program for providing staff to help with event registrations
Treasure Coast-Vero Kiwanis Club members for supporting the community projects of Growing Healthy Kids

Thank you's to our wonderful Event Sponsors:
Nelson Wealth Management Group (Merrill Lynch)
Helen DeBie
Seacoast National Bank
GreensPlus
SeneGence
Disney's Vero Beach Resort
Don's Import Auto Service
Nancy Orlando
The Firm, LLC
Shot by Ella Photoart, LLC
The Petrillo Collection
Ambrosius
Penelope's Boutique and Twirl (thanks for providing the beautiful pants, shorts, skirts, jackets, and children's tutus for A FUSION OF FASHION AND FUN)
Mark's at the Pointe
The Space Arranger
MaxAchiever LLC
Top Drawer Cabinetry & Carpentry LLC
Bold Marketing Solutions, Inc.

Thank you's to our Event Supporters:
Facial Rejuvenation by Dr. Gerald Pierone
Eco-Colour Designs
Publix Super Markets
Staples
Decorative Arts
Jetson TV & Appliance
Blue Ribbon Boarding & Grooming
Riverside Theater
Sebastian Gym
Florida Kids
Bags by "B"
Kiva's Organic Contour
Alternative Medicine Family Care Center
Hands for Healing
River Grille
Patti's Bistro & Catering
The Etched Heart
Bags 'N Rags
Essential Healing Therapy
Island Smoothie Cafe

The Village Store
Vic's Pizza

When you do business with any of these businesses and individuals, please thank them for supporting Growing Healthy Kids and helping us to improve the health - and lives - of America's children, child and one garden at a time.

To quote one of the event's attendees, "A FUSION OF FASHION AND FUN was a magical afternoon!!"

With deep gratitude and sincere appreciation to everyone for helping create A FUSION OF FASHION AND FUN so we can add fuel to our work that teaching adults that childhood obesity is not OK and must be reversed, I thank you all.

To your perfect health,
Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids
http://www.growinghealthykids.me/