IN THIS ISSUE:
At Least 5-A-Day!
ASK CONNIE: When should my baby start eating solid food?
NEWS IN BRIEF:
Breakfast boosts entire day's nutrition
Can you predict your child's height?
Why super-sized portions may be super-sizing kids

Loaded with vitamins, minerals and fiber, most fruits and vegetables are low in calories, fat and sodium. An excellent source of vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, potassium and fiber, fruits and vegetables also contain a whole array of natural disease-fighting substances collectively known as "phytochemicals." People who eat mostly plant-based diets have a lower incidence of obesity, cancer and heart disease.

AT LEAST 5 A DAY!
Motivate kids to eat more fruits and veggies

It's not exactly news and it's certainly not a secret - Americans should eat more fruits and vegetables. The national 5 A Day - for Better Health program has permeated our grocery stores, schools and the media with important reminders about the health benefits of veggies and fruit. With more than 1800 organizations across the nation promoting 5 A Day, this program is the nation's largest public/private nutrition education program.

But while the campaign has succeeded in raising awareness, the gap between knowledge and behavior remains. In other words, the challenge is to convince kids to eat more fruits and veggies.

According to the latest government statistics, only one in five children eats the minimum daily recommendation of three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit each day.

Of the vegetables eaten by children ages 6-11, approximately 55-60% come from either potatoes or tomatoes (translation: french fries, ketchup and pizza sauce). Children have especially low intakes of the extra nutrient-rich dark green leafy and deep yellow varieties(1).

Likewise, kids get the majority of their fruit intake from fruit juice. Children ages 6-11 averaged a mere one-half serving daily of the more nutrient dense fruits, including citrus, melons and berries(1).

Remember too, that "5 A Day" is the minimum recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables. The Food Guide Pyramid advises 2-4 servings of fruit and 3-5 servings of vegetables, raising the bar as high as 9 daily servings. So, as you continue to push this message to children and adults, think at least 5 A Day.

Web-based resources for 5-A-Day Education:

http://www.5Aday.com This site is hosted by the Produce for Better Health Foundation. Highlights include links for kids and educators, recipes and nutrition facts labels for 57 different fruits and vegetables (great for making comparisons!).

http://dccps.nci.nih.gov/5aday/ The official National Cancer Institute site includes detailed information about the program, including 5 A Day initiatives and coordinators in each state,

http://www.5aday.gov Sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This site features the "What does it take to be healthy?" an interactive calculator that looks at both 5 A Day servings and exercise.

http://www.dole5aday.com This excellent site is highly interactive, packed with nutrition lesson ideas and even features an encyclopedia of fruit and vegetable information.

REFERENCES:

1. PYRAMID SERVINGS DATA,Results from USDA's 1994- 96 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals, Table Sets 10 &11, February 1999. Click here for web version.

2. Hearn MD. Baranowski T. Baranowski J. Doyle C. Smith M. Lin LS. Resnicow K. Environmental influences on dietary behavior among children: availability and accessibility of fruits and vegetables enable consumption. Journal of Health Education. 29(1):26-32, 1998 Jan-Feb.

3. Liquori T. Koch PD. Contento IR. Castle J. The Cookshop Program: outcome evaluation of a nutrition education program linking lunchroom food experiences with classroom cooking experiences. Journal of Nutrition Education. 30(5):302-13, 1998 Sep-Oct

PRODUCING 5-A-DAY EATERS

• Offer several fruit and vegetable choices. In one study(2), when researchers looked at data from a school nutrition education project, they found that children ate more fruits and vegetables for lunch when schools offered more fruits and vegetables for lunch!
• Include at least one cooked vegetable each day. While some kids prefer salad and carrot sticks, others prefer their veggies hot.
• Introduce new fruits and vegetables one at a time. Don't give up if an item isn't well accepted at first. Kids often require multiple exposures to a new food before they will take their first bite!
• To improve acceptance of fruits and vegetables at mealtime, host cooking/tasting sessions for students. Research done with Cookshop(3), a food-based nutrition education program, showed that when the curriculum included cooking in the classroom, students ate more of the same foods (grains and vegetables) served in the cafeteria.

TEACHING TIPS

The following integrated learning activities will sharpen thinking skills while motivating students to eat more fruits and vegetables:

EDIBLE PLANTS Bring in a variety of vegetables that come from different parts of the plant, including roots (carrots, beets, radishes), stems (celery, asparagus), leaves (lettuce, spinach, cabbage), fruit (cucumbers, squash, peppers, tomatoes), flowers (broccoli, cauliflower, artichoke) and seeds (corn, peas, green beans).

Explain how all plants have different parts, all necessary for the plant's survival. Talk about how we eat different parts of various plants. Ask students to guess which part of the plant each vegetable comes from. Offer taste samples of each type of vegetable or have students assemble and eat their own "plant-part-salad" from the assorted vegetables.

IS IT JUICE? On a large table, set up a display of beverages, labels and/or empty containers. Include a variety of fruit-flavored soft drinks, fruit flavored sugar drinks, drinks that contain 10% or less real fruit juice and 100% fruit juices.

1. Ask the students if they know how to tell if a beverage is made from real fruit. (It says 100% fruit juice on the package or fruit juice is the main ingredient listed).
2. Explain that many fruit-beverages are made from sugar water and fruit flavor. Even drinks with 10% juice have less than 2 tablespoons of fruit juice in a one cup serving!
3. Ask whether the pictures on the label tell the truth about the product. Point out that many fruit drinks with little or no fruit juice often have pictures of real fruit on the label or package.
4. Have students take turns coming up to the table to look at and compare the nutrition information on the beverages.
5. Offer samples of 100% fruit juice, including novel varieties such as tropical blends, orange/tangerine mix or apple/pear juice.

GOALS AND GRAPHS Have children to keep a record of how many fruit and vegetable servings they eat each day for a week. To improve accuracy, show examples of standard serving sizes for different fruits and vegetables. Ask kids to plot the results in one or more of the following ways:

Chart the number of servings eaten each day on a bar graph. Ask students to note whether they met their "5 A Day" goal on one or more days, if they ate more fruits or vegetables, whether eating at a school made a difference in their intake and whether the weekend was any different from week days. Based on the results of their records, suggest students develop goals and strategies for eating at least 5 A Day.

Have students compare the data from the entire class in some of the following ways:

1. Is there a difference in the fruit or vegetable intake between girls and boys?
2. Does it make a difference whether students eat breakfast or lunch at school?
3. Which fruit was eaten most often? Which vegetable?
4. Did students eat more raw, cooked or canned fruits and vegetables?

ASK CONNIE
When should my baby start eating solid food?

Q. My 5 month-old baby seems hungry all the time, even right after I nurse him. Should I be feeding him solid foods?

A. Sometime between four and six months, your son will begin to show signs that he is ready for solid feedings. Physical and developmental cues that a baby is able to begin eating solids include holding head straight up when sitting, opening mouth as food approaches, interest in food when others are eating and frequent sucking on hands and objects.

Once your baby is ready for solids, start by spoon feeding a thin mixture of iron-fortified infant cereal. Gradually increase the amount and thickness of the cereal until your baby is eating 4-6 tablespoons daily. Next, introduce strained or pureed vegetables and fruits into his diet. In order to pinpoint any negative or allergic reactions caused by a certain food, offer one new vegetable or fruit at time and wait 5-6 days before trying another. Wait to introduce strained meats and poultry until about 8 to 9 months.

Research shows that many parents are unaware of these guidelines and are feeding their babies solid foods prior to 4-6 months.. Starting too early can cause digestive problems and reduce a baby's appetite for breast milk or formula which are more nutritious for infants, reports Betty Carruth, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville (1).

NEWS IN BRIEF

Breakfast boosts entire day's nutrition
Breakfast is a very important contributor to American schoolchildren’s overall diet quality, according to a recent report. Among children in both low- and higher income households, those who ate breakfast had a statistically significant better overall diet, as measured by the Healthy Eating Index. Children who ate a school breakfast had an even better overall diet. For all children, consuming breakfast was associated with higher grain, fruit, milk, and variety scores. SOURCE: Basiotis PP. Lino M. Anand RS. Eating Breakfast Greatly Improves Schoolchildren’s Diet Quality. Nutrition Insights; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Insight 15, December 1999. Access this document at http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/insights.html

Can you predict your child's height?
While there is no fool-proof way to absolutely predict your child's adult height, there is an equation that can provide an estimate, based on parental height and a child's current height and age. WebMD has developed a height calculator based on this equation. You can access it at http://my.webmd.com/heightpredict

Why super-sized portions may be super-sizing kids
In the February 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Barbara Rolls and colleagues report on a portion-size study they conducted with three- and five-year-old children. When offered three different sized portions on different days, they found that the three year-olds ate according to appetite and were not influenced by the size of the portion. The five year-olds, however, adjusted their intake based on the serving size. In other words, they ate more when they were served bigger portions. This study offers insight into why the "super-sized" portions that have become so common in the U.S. May also be "super-sizing" our children's bodies. SOURCE: Rolls BJ. Engell D. Birch LL. Serving portion size influences 5-year-old but not 3-year-old children's food intakes. J Am Diet Assoc. 2000;100(2): 232-234.

© 2000, by Connie Evers, All Rights Reserved. There is a modest reprint fee for reproducing the material in this newsletter in either print or electronic publications. Please send an email to reprint@nutritionforkids.com for details and rates.

The information contained in this newsletter is not intended as a substitute for medical and/or nutrition advice. See your physician and/or registered dietitian for individual health and/or dietary concerns.