A Roundup of Healthy Holiday Tips and More
HOST members offer healthy holiday tips and more in our latest roundup of healthy eating and physical activity news.
Holiday Tips
- The American Heart Association suggests "8 Ways to Hack Your Holiday Recipes" to make them healthier.
- Salud America! is hosting a #SaludTues "Healthy Holidays - How to" Tweetchat from 1 to 2 p.m. ET on December 4, 2018, to tweet information, resources, and tips to prevent or help the health dangers of stress, unhealthy eating and limited physical activity during this time of the year.
Ideas and Success Stories
- Voices for Healthy Kids shares what the new federal recommendations for physical activity mean and how we can achieve the goal of 150 or more minutes a week of moderate activity.
- Marathon Kids profiles fourth-grader Gigi, whose participation in their program has transformed not only her fitness, but also her confidence.
The National Farm to School Network shares a story of a student working with its Seed Change in Native Communities project, who became a leader in his school's garden clubdespite hardships at home.
Research
- A new study, published in the current issue of Pediatric Obesity, looks at the influence of community programs and policies--including out-of-school time ones--in preventing childhood obesity. This study has the largest sample size to date.
- An article in the latest Afterschool Matters journal explains the development and use of the Healthy Plate Photo nutrition assessment tool, based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture MyPlate guidelines. The study suggests that the tool can be "a practical and useful nutrition assessment tool for OST programs to use with youth from varied socioeconomic and racial/ethnic backgrounds."
Grants
- Applications for the Safe Routes to Parks Activating Communities technical assistance and grant program are now open and due by December 10, 2018. This program will provide tailored technical assistance for eleven communities to develop Safe Routes to Parks action plans and awards $12,500 to each community to begin implementation of those plans.
