Starting Off the School Year With a Healthy Routine

Here are some of her tips:

1. Eat breakfast!  For kids, it's important that they start the day with some protein and carbohydrates to feed their body and brain.

2. Eat dinner as a family sitting at the table!  Eating together is a good way to know what is going on with your children and reinforce healthy eating habits.

3. Avoid sweet drinks and fast foods!   These are both full of empty calories and no nutrition. Making big batches of healthy foods 2-3X/week and eating the leftovers is a good way to be able to have healthy foods available quickly. If you have time to go to the local public markets, this is a good way to get big quantities of in season healthy foods cheaply. For example, now you can stock up on tomatoes and make a big pot of sauce to freeze in smaller quantities to use throughout the winter.

4. You should aim for 2 cups of fruit and 2-3 cups of vegetables every day. One way to sneak in vegetables to picky eaters is by chopping small/pureeing them (this can also be done 1-2X/month, then frozen) and adding to foods they like (Mac N Cheese with cauliflower for example)

4. Make physical activity a part of your normal routine. This makes it less of a hassle and more of a habit. Pick something that is fun and that you can do together as a family so it doesn't seem like a chore. Most people think they don't have enough time to exercise, but it really only takes 30 min most days of the week to get the recommended amount and if you look at how much time you spend on the internet or watching TV, I bet everyone could find 30 extra minutes to move around.