Yes, we all know that much of the junk food out there usually costs less than healthy snacks.

We also know that regularly consuming junk food can pack on the pounds.

Well here is some good news about snacks.

From 2006 to 2008, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health evaluated the snacks offered to kids at 32 YMCAs in four cities in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, South, Midwest and East. Researchers found that health snacks and/or snack combinations don’t have to cost more than junk food.

The YMCA sites participated in a program called the YMCA/Harvard Afterschool Food and Fitness Project, designed to improve the diets and boost physical activity among kids aged 5 to 12 attending the Ys’ after-school programs.

The project set out standards for snacks served at YMCAs, including: serving water instead of sugar-sweetened beverages, offering whole grains and a fruit or vegetable with each snack and avoiding trans fats.

The average cost per snack was 57 cents, with prices ranging from 47 cents in the Midwest and Northeast to 78 cents in the Pacific Northwest. As expected, snacks that met the healthy eating standards cost 50 percent more than those that didn’t.

Yet, some YMCAs found ways of mixing and matching combinations that both met the healthy eating standards and kept costs at or even below what it would cost to serve  less healthy snacks.

Some Ys served water instead of fruit juice, which significantly reduced the price of a snack. Instead of the fruit juice, Ys could serve water and a banana or apple slices and water, and the snack had the same calorie count at a lower cost. The whole fruit has the added nutritional benefits of fiber and helping kids feel fuller, longer than juice.

Another example was serving water and cheese, which  is less expensive than serving chocolate milk, and the cheese contains less sugar.

Other areas where Ys could make improvements without adding to cost were substituting whole grains, in foods such as Triscuits, Wheat Thins and Cheerios, for refined grains such as graham crackers and Saltines.

Snacks that include canned or frozen vegetables are on the pricy side, but snacks including fresh vegetables, such as carrots and celery, are not.

The study is in the February issue of the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

Joy Dubost, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, called the study “well-conducted.” However, the five criteria used to determine what qualifies as a healthy snack option aren’t as comprehensive as she would like.

She cited tortilla chips counting as a whole grain and therefore meeting the criteria for a healthy snack option, but they’re also full of saturated fat, which may contribute to heart disease over the long term.

“Applesauce counts as a fruit, but it would be better if the guidelines specified that the after-school programs choose applesauce without added sugar. In addition to addressing saturated fats and added sugars, the healthiest after-school snack would take into account calories and sodium, which many American children get too much of as well,” Dubost said.

For more on choosing healthy snacks for children, visit Food and Fun After School.

(SOURCES: Rebecca Mozaffarian, M.S., M.P.H., project manager, YMCA/Harvard Afterschool Food and Fitness Project; Joy Dubost, R.D., registered dietitian and spokeswoman, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; February 2012, Preventing Chronic Disease)

Are you willing to accept weight loss directives from your doctor if he or she is overweight or obese?

According to a recent study, doctors who are overweight are less likely than other doctors to talk to their seriously overweight patients about weight control.

According to the study author Sara Bleich, an assistant professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, doctors in general, not just overweight doctors, are not doing a good job about bringing up weight loss with their patients.

Although, researchers did find that doctors of normal weight were more confident than their overweight counterparts in their ability to counsel overweight and obese patients about diet and exercise.

Bleich said she came up with the idea for the study after going to a dentist who had bad teeth. “I thought, ‘How are you going to take good care of my teeth if you can’t take good care of your own?’ ”

She decided to see a different dentist and began thinking about overweight doctors and their overweight patients.

Last year, Bleich and her colleagues sent a survey to 500 primary care physicians. Almost two-thirds were male, 70 percent were white and almost three-quarters were at least 40 years old. About half the physicians surveyed were overweight or obese.

Only about one-third of doctors of normal weight said they talked to obese patients about weight loss, compared to 18 percent of those doctors who were overweight.

“For physicians, weight matters when it comes to obesity care,” Bleich said.

Bleich said electronic record-keeping may help doctors do a better job of treating overweight patients because the body mass index (BMI) of patients can be automatically calculated.

The BMI is a commonly used measure of whether a person’s weight isn’t normal for his or her height.

(SOURCES: Sara N. Bleich, Ph.D., assistant professor, health policy, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore; Robert E. Post, M.D., research director, Virtua Family Medicine Residency, Voorhees, N.J.; January 2012, Obesity

The following post is by Kathy Simmons from Nanny Services http://www.nannyservices.org/blog/10-reasons-why-kids-love-to-play-candyland/

Candyland is probably the simplest board game that exists.

It is made for very young children, and as long as it has been around, young children have been enjoying the fun it provides.

There are several reasons for Candyland’s ongoing popularity.

1.  Bright colors – Red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple; these six basic colors make up the squares on the path that winds across the board from start to finish. The images surrounding the path contain those same bright colors that kids love.
2. ‘Sweet’ images – It is ‘Candyland’, after all. The board is covered with images of lollipops, candy canes, gumdrops and sugar coated sweet things of many varieties. There are also several special places along the path that are designated with their own sweet images and pulling a card from the stack with the matching image will move you to that ‘sweet spot’. Just looking at it could give you a sugar rush.
3. Shortcuts – As just mentioned in No. 2, pulling out a card with a sweet image on it allows you to move immediately to that space, which can either move you quickly ahead or quickly backwards. Uncertainty about what card will come up on your turn is part of the fun-filled anticipation of the game.
4. Equal opportunity – Candyland is not a game of skill, like checkers. Every player has the same equal opportunity of winning regardless of their age or education. An adult doesn’t have to ‘let the kid win’; the kids have just as good of a chance of winning as an adult does.
5. No counting – Many board games require at least counting skills to move around the board. Even small children who do not know how to count the spaces as they move can play Candyland; all you need to know is your colors.
6. No reading – There are no words on any of the cards that are drawn from the pile; there are only blocks of color or images that match an image on the board. This is just another plus for preschoolers who want to be able to play board games like their older siblings or parents.
7. Two or more players – Candyland can be played with only two players or it can accommodate a small group of players, and it is just as much fun with two as it is with four. This means that a single child only needs one parent or one other child to be able to play.
8. Short and quick – Small children have short attention spans. Candyland caters to this by making the path to victory short and sweet. (Pardon the pun!) Preschoolers would much rather play a short game over and over than to play a game that takes an hour or more to reach the finish.
9. No adults required – This is a factor about the game that both adults and kids appreciate; kids can play this game easily without any help at all from adults. There is no complicated assembly and it is easy enough for one child to explain it to another.
10. Simple rules – The rules to the game are very simple and easy to remember and follow. 1. Players take turns. 2. On your turn you draw one card from the pile of cards. 3. One colored square on the card means move to the next square of that color on the path. Two colored squares means that you move your marker to first one and then the next square of the color on the card. A picture card means that you move your card to that picture on the path. 4. The first one whose marker reaches the end of the path is the winner.

 Candyland is not likely to ever lose its place in the world of preschoolers.

There is not a more perfect way to introduce preschoolers to board games than Candyland.

The USDA Office of Communications published the following bulletin on new nutrition standards for school meals on Friday, January 20^th.

WASHINGTON, January 20, 2012 – First Lady Michelle Obama will be joined by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at Parklawn Elementary School to speak with parents about the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) new and improved nutrition standards for school lunches.

This is an important accomplishment of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act that President Obama signed into law last year, USDA is making the first major changes in school meals in over 15 years, and doing so in a way that’s achievable for schools across the nation.

The new nutrition standards make the same kinds of changes that many parents are already encouraging at home, including ensuring kids are offered fruits and vegetables every day of the week, substantially increasing offerings of whole grain-rich foods, offering only fat-free or low-fat milk varieties and making sure kids are getting proper portion sizes.

To Be Continued…New nutrition standards will be published here when made public.

Bedtime Tips for Parents of Young Children

Bedtime can be a difficult time for parent and child.  The American Academy of Pediatrics offers the following tips for handling the times when your child cries at bedtime:

• Wait a few minutes before responding; if the crying continues, wait longer each time before you respond to the cries.
• Offer reassurance that you’re there, but don’t play, linger or turn on a light if you do enter the room.
• Each time you enter the room, stay a little farther from the bed; eventually, reassure your child without entering the room.
• When your child calls for you, offer a gentle reminder that it’s time to go to sleep.

Tips for Handling Winter Dry Skin

Winter weather and heat in homes and offices can lead to dry skin, which can be itchy, uncomfortable and even painful if the skin begins to crack.

The Cleveland Clinic offers the following tips for caring for dry skin:

• Make sure your shower or bath water is lukewarm; never too hot.
• Take baths or showers of no longer than 10 minutes.
• Apply a moisturizer as soon as you get out of the bath or shower.
• Wash with a moisturizing cleanser.
• During winter months, moisturize with a heavy cream or ointment. Use a lighter lotion during summer.