Each January, people of all ages resolve to be more fit, eat healthier and dabble in some new and exciting hobbies that have been shelved for far too long. Living by a food, fitness and fun mentality is what I’ve always believed will fuel our souls and help us build in some moderation and restraint for each area.

And, there’s the rub! We mean well, we really do. But, more times than not, we undo our own good intentions by not quite getting where to draw the line between healthy practices and excess. We start off on the right foot with healthy practices but often go overboard and then burn out very quickly, abandoning the new ways for the old, unhealthy ways before the grass pokes through the snow.

If you look a bit deeper at what drives us from getting off track, it’s typically one of a handful of health myths that permeate our society. Here are my favorite, the ones I hear most often:

Myth 1: If you exercise or play a sport you will be fit (or are fit).
Myth 2: Any sleep is better than no sleep and will keep your body functioning well.
Myth 3: It’s ok to eat too much or too little once in a while.

The reality of each couldn’t be further from the myth!

1. Myth 1 Reality:

In truth, being fit is about doing the right exercise in the right way with a mix of aerobic activities and weight bearing exercises. It’s important that our entire body gets moving every week and most of us don’t do that. Sports are fun and have the camaraderie of the team aspect but don’t make us fit given how long we play and the intensity of the play.

So, if you just shoot hoops with the guys or girls, play golf, or play in a baseball or softball league, you won’t be fit. But, if you add biking, jogging, walking, swimming and some weight lifting a couple times a week…you’re much more on your way!

2. Myth 2 Reality:

Our bodies require at least 8 hours of sleep to function well. During sleep, our muscles, nerves, mind and soul repair itself from the day’s wear and tear. If sleep is short-changed, that repair process becomes incomplete and our body isn’t reset to it’s steady state. We do ok with less sleep once in a while but if we short-change sleep chronically, our bodies begin to not function well and other symptoms begin to develop – headaches, GI symptoms, even muscle cramping and pain.

Too much sleep can actually make us feel more tired and doesn’t “catch up” for missed sleep from another time.

It’s best to attempt to have steady sleep as much as possible and if sleep becomes chronically disrupted to consult your physician to help get it back on track.

3. Myth 3 Reality:

Eating must be balanced and regular. Our bodies require a certain amount of calories each day and in the right proportion to function well. If we eat too little, we short change our bodies of valuable calories for energy and nutrients for our body’s systems. If we eat too much, our body has to deal with the excess and we feel punky. Best to strive for a “just right” amount whenever possible.

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So, this new year work on busting these myths to get your food, fitness and fun on the path to good health in a way that not only will count but will stick around long term.

We’ve always cared about the environment and have been a “go green” family at heart but have become more so as our girls have become older and come to the “go green” concept in their own way through what they’ve learned in school.

“Going green” isn’t just about saving the planet, which is incredibly important, it’s about having a healthy environment for all living beings to lived in. The more we all do, the greater the benefit.

What’s cool about the “go green” way of life is that it doesn’t take a huge amount of effort. Small things like watching where we set our thermostat, refrigerator and freezer temperatures all go to the energy we save.

So, this month, take a look at what you do now to help “go green” and see if you and your family can add some small ways each week increase ways to “go green”.

For example, you could have a plan such as

Week 1: focus on recycling cans and plastic.

Week 2: focus on saving electricity by shutting off what you don’t use.

Week 3: Look for leaky doors and windows and seek easy solutions such as door stops to seal in your heat.

Week 4: change your light bulgs to the energy saving kind.

Here are some links for more ideas:

National Geographic Green Guide
World Watch Institute 10 Ways to Go Green and Save

Did you know that people who strive to be happy actually live healthier and more disease free lives? One of the best ways to accomplish this is to give back to others within our own communities.

Teaching our children about the value of community and the  need to be involved helps them learn the importance of being part of something greater than themselves and how to be giving individuals. What’s cool is that it doesn’t take that much time, energy or money but pays forward for ourselves and our communities for years to come.

This month, focus on community and help your kids understand the value of being part of the community in your area. Some areas to focus on include:

1. Week 1: The Past

Some of your kids have already done community service: choral concerts at nursing homes, planting trees in the community, making sandwiches for the homeless, food and can drives. Talk about the many things your kids have done through school, your religious organizations and home already so you can set the stage that you and your family are already part of a giving home, community and society.

This is the week to take stock in what you’ve already done.

2. Week 2: Where do you want to go?

What do you want to do this year in your community for giving? How about your kids? If there is a cause or group you’d like to contribute to that needs help, find a way to make it happen. Often the schools and religious groups are more than willing to take on a new cause and it usually doesn’t take more than a few people collecting spare change under their couches to start a big ball rolling in an exciting direction.

3. Week 3: Plan for the Holidays

With the holidays around the corner, talk with your kids about that special time and think about how you may make a special difference this year. Is there a children’s organization you can get the schools to rally around?

4. Week 4: Be Active!

One of the most fun ways to give back is to do so while moving! Is there a walk for a cause you can rally some of the kids to do that isn’t too ambitious? Many groups have kids’ walks or bikathons that not only help kids give back but move. If you find a cause that the kids want to give to but doesn’t have a moving event, create one! Your community could be the first of a nationwide movement. All it takes is someone to start the ball rolling.

Giving is important to me. If you find interesting causes for kids that are true 501 c3  charities, especially around the time of the holidays, let me know so I can make a master list of places to give!

With back to school time upon us, this is the perfect time to focus on friends and think about the impact we make on our friends and they make on us, and to help our kids understand what we mean when we say things like ‘find friends that are good for you’ and ‘weed out friends that are bad for you’.

Our friends play an enormous role in our health and well being. They can boost us up and rally us through when we need the push but can also pull us down when we least expect it because of their own issues.

Friendships and socializing are important in our lives but better to go for quality than quantity. So, this month, we’re going to focus on what’s important in friendship for our health and the health of our friends and help our family members do the same, especially our kids.

The issues to focus on this month include:

1. Kids and Friendship Issues. We don’t always take enough time to help our kids understand the roles their friends play in their lives so this week, as school is approaching, talk to your kids about their friends. Help them sort out who in their social circle helps them be better than they thought they could be and who has the same but negative impact. Helping our kids develop this awareness now will help them enormously when they are one day on their own.

2.Set a good example with your kids and how you manage your friendships.Our kids take our queues from us. They’ll pick up how to treat other people from us. If we treat our friends well, they will do the same. If we take advantage of people, they’ll try that hat on, too. Our best path is to truly treat others as we’d want to be treated. Sounds a bit spiritual, I know, but isn’t that the only way to really learn to be a good friend and the way we’d want our kids to be good friends?

3.The 2 way street rule. This is the lesson I try to reinforce to my kids with their friendships. If they are not getting from a friendship what they are putting in, the friendship is lopsided and may be worth taking a step back from. This is something that can become very draining and we’ve all experiened it. Emotional drain means we become unhealthy. The more we find friends we can have that 2 way experience with, the better quality our friends will be and the less drama we’ll have over all.

When was the last time you had some “me time”? It’s an important part of life for all of us – adults and kids – but a rare commodity these days with our busy lives. This month we’re going to take the first step towards remedying that by focusing our attention on “me time” for the entire family.

The goal is to find a way for every one in your family to have some “me time” each week. The age of your kids will direct how involved you’ll have to be with their “me time”. Some kids will need more direction than others. Some may need you there having a tad of “me time”, too, just to help capture the right mood.

For this to work, have a family meeting and agree to to a few simple rules of the road:

1. “Me time” is important for every one equally.
2. You’ll all support each other’s quest for “me time”.
3. You’ll protect each other’s “me time” and only invade it for very, very important reasons.

“Me time” can be anything from listening to music to taking a walk to finding time to have a long bubble bath and flip through a magazine you’ve wanted to read for a while. To help you get into the “me time” mood, here are some areas to focus on this month:

1. Week 1: Toss your daily routine out the window! This can be a lot of fun for everyone. We all have daily routines that can be a grind. Find a day you can shake it up and have each family member snatch some time off their “I wish I had more time to do_____________” list.

2. Week 2: Got Books! When was the last time you all sat around the couch or under a tree and read a book, or flipped through a magazine? This week, unplug the gizmos and go all paper. If all goes well, this will become a staple in your kids’ “me time” repertoire.

3. Week 3: The Quiet Spot. One of the best ways to snatch “me time” is to find a favorite quiet spot and make that your own. It can be a chair, tree, couch, alcove, oversize pillow. This week everyone in your family should seek out a quiet spot and test it out. This will bethe place for “me time” when needed. Of course, quiet spots can always change, as often as anyone would like. The concept is to seek one out and use it – make it your own and learn to use it as a place to just be by yourself in.

4. Week 4: Foster “Me Time” in your kids. Teens and older tweens may have this one nailed down already but not all. Starting as soon as kids are old enough to play independently, help your kids learn to take a few minutes just to be by themselves and enjoy what they’d like to. Initially, you may have to be in the room to make suggestions or just provide reassurance but over time each of your kids will learn how to unwind and dial down the noise we all carry around with us that we need to learn how to turn off once in a while.

While “me time” is mean to refuel each person, no reason you can’t make it a family affair if you all happen to be having your “me time” at once. In fact, for busy families, that may be the best way to ensure that everyone gets equal amounts of “me time” but with schedules not always jiving that won’t always be possible.

How will you know it’s working? Simple. You’ll have a happy and relaxed family who takes things in stride a lot more than during your pre-me time days.

It could easily be the start of a new Dr. Seuss book: “Your health…here, there and everywhere!”

You could read that one line so many ways:

Your health happens here, there and everywhere.
Your health involves places here, there and everwhere.
Do you know the details of your health – here, there and everywhere?
You need to be healthy here, there and everywhere.

You get the idea! Your health is part of you and travels about with you where ever you go. Even though it doesn’t always make itself visible, it makes its presence known by how you feel. When your health is good, you feel good. When your health is so-so, your not at your best.

We need to dress our health for the day just like we do our body for the weather. Unlike bodies the require clothes, our health status requires information, and sometimes even medication.

This month, let’s tune into those special areas a health status needs to, well, be healthy!

1.Your Health: Nuts, Bolts & Bandaids

This week, take a moment and ask yourself a few simple questions:

1. When did we all have checkups?
2. Is each member of my family up to date on our necessary immunizations?
3. Do I know vital information for each family member such as current weight, height, medication list (drug name and dose)?
4. Can I rattle off the past medical history of my immediate family?
5. Do you know the numbers of your family doctor, dentist, orthodontist?
6. Do you know the names and doses of all medications your family members take? These can be hard to keep tabs of so write them down and include over the counter medications such as vitamins, pain relievers, allergy medications, rash treatments – and anything else someone in your home uses regularly.

This is the week you are going to organize all of these nuts and bolts – write them all down. If you want to get really fancy, computerize them! You can use a simple word document, Excel spread sheet or online health record through your insurance company, doctor’s office or Google Health or Microsoft’s Health Vault.

One of the advantages of using an online personal health record is you can access it 24/7 anywhere in the world. But, I’d suggest if you are traveling you bring a printed copy to have in a pinch of the essential snapshot of everyone’s health.

2. Health To Go (aka Travel Health)

Whether you are traveling to the corner store or on vacation, your health goes with you. Do you know the details? The further you travel from home, the more important it is to have those details at the tip of your tongue! Online health records are perfect for this purpose – see #1 above!

3. OnLine Health

When putting together your online health record, be sure to include a full snapshot of everyone’s vital data and dates for:

1. current health problems: names of conditions and medications (with doses)
2. past health issues and surgeries
3. Allergies to medications
4. current weight and height
5. last tetanus shot for all family members (full immunization records are best but tetanus is important to know when traveling in case of injury or cut)
6. all the answers to questions in #1 with important doctor phone numbers
7. in case of emergency contact number

4. In Case of Emergency

The last thing you need is for an emergency to occur and to discover that the person you thought was ‘reliable’ actually isn’t. Before you write down a name, talk to that person and be sure that person is up for being your emergency contact for you, your spouse and your kids.

This month we celebrate family and how we spend time with our family. Think about not just when you spend time with your famly but the quality of that time, and meeting each person’s needs. For eack of the next 4 weeks, focus on these ideas:

1.Family Time: where, when, who

Daily: Family meals are a wonderful way to capture family time each day. For some families, dinner is the best time, for others breakfast. If your family’s schedule is too nutty to allow for daily meals, this could be a red flag you are all too busy. Consider looking at everyone’s schedules and see if each of you can cut something back – an activity for kids, work times for parents. If schedules can’t be curtailed, then find some consistent time during the week you know you can have a few family meals and make sure everyone is there. If push comes to shove, weekend time is a must.

Weekends: Make sure you have something substantial scheduled for the weekend that everyone can look forward to. This activity doesn’t have to take up the entire day but should take up enough time so that people are relaxed and not looking at their watches worrying about being late for the next activity. Mix up the activities between those that are artistic, relaxing and athletic. And, make sure they are a mix of parent-chosen and kid-chosen activities. You’ll learn a great deal about your child by the activity they opt to do with you and with the family!

Vacations: For kids, sometimes the best vacations are the simplest, even “staycations”. Maximize quality of time over adventure. Kids would rather have your time than be on the go not interacting with you.

2. Individual Goals

Do you know how your kids want to spend time with you? Do they have hobbies they want to explore? As kids get into middle school and high school, these hobbies and needs become more important. Make sure you make it a priority to be interested in what your kids are interested in. Even “googling” the activity so you are up on the latest news and information will go a long way in showing your child you care and want to understand their passion for that activity – and is a fantastic way to connect with them.

3. Outside Time

Talk to your family about how everyone wants to spend time outside. For tweens and teens, it is important that they be heard. For smaller kids, make sure the activities are age-appropriate.

Respect each other’s preferences. I have one daughter who likes less intense sports than my other daughter. We have to balance out the activities we do and sometimes divide and conquer. Compromise becomes very important as does “thinking outside the box” and finding activities that interest everyone so no one feels pressured to do something out of their comfort zone.

Outdoor live museums, sculpture gardens, zooz, botanical gardens, sightseeing, are all great ways to get everyone outside and bonding without “athletic pressure”.

View family time for bonding – not necessarily exercise. If you keep “bonding” in focus for this type of activity, it becomes easier  to find places to go that everyone will enjoy without pressure to succeed. Keep in mind that for some people, exercise and sports becomes competitive. Family time should be devoid of that to allow you all to interact more comfortably. You can find other times to get out your adrenaline on the ball fields!!

4. Inside Time

There will be times we all get “stuck” inside – either due to weather or schedules. How do you spend time as a family? Board games, puzzles, cooking in the kitchen are all wonderful ways to bond as a family. Family movie night or watching TiVO’d shows you all enjoy together is another great way to spend time together. We tend to talk through whatever is on and miss most of the show, to be honest!

What’s your media diet like? Do you have a healthy balance? Too much? Too little? This month, the FitTips focus is how much media we all use with the goal to find a healthy middle ground so we can be plugged in when we need to be but unplugged to enjoy the greater world for more of our time.

Let’s face it, we’re all a bit too plugged in – adults and kids! If we can unplug just a bit more, our stress levels will come down and our qualities of experiences will go up! On average, we all spend a bit too much time plugged in and viewing screens, adults and kids. By paying more attention to how we spend our time with technology, we can maximize how we use it, become more efficient, and enjoy our off line lives a lot more!

Week 1: Do we really need cell phones to buy coffee?

How often have you had the experience of walking into your local coffee shop, restaurant or store only to have someone at the next table or aisle having a full blown conversation on their cell phone? I personally find that one of the more stressful situations to be in. And, if we are with our kids, good chance they will over hear some tidbit of adult life we don’t want them to be exposed to just yet. Somewhere along the line, a true lack of boundaries with cell phones has emerged that isn’t appropriate. It’s time we stop invading each other’s privacy and personal space and show a bit more respect for the public spaces we are occupying when using our cell phones.

Where do we start? We start with our own cell phone behavior and teaching our kids proper cell phone behavior. If we all do a bit better about not chatting in coffee lines, grocery stores and restuarants, a domino effect will start and soon enough we’ll be more cell free in public spaces.

Week 2: Do you know what your kids are connected to?

This is an issue that we all have to start and continue all year long. We not only need to pay attention to what our kids are using for technology but learn to chat with our kids about their technology use.

This week, start by making a list of what your kids are using from big to small. Ask them about privacy settings and let them know that from this week forward you will be active participants in their online lives.

How do you start the conversation? Here are some conversation starters:

“Let’s check out your Facebook page. I haven’t seen it in a while.”
“Just a heads up…I’m going to check your computer in an hour and look at your Facebook page, IM log and a few other social media spaces.”
“Whose on your Facebook ‘friends’ list?”
“I’ve noticed a lot of text minutes. Who do you usually text? Can I see your phone…I want to be sure you haven’t received any sext messages.”

The goal is for your tweens and teens to know you are in the moment and aware of what they are doing. As you build trust with your kids in conversations about their online use, the goal is to be sure they know to come to you if anything seems off – if someone they don’t know tries to friend them; if they receive a message that makes them uncomfortable; if they ever receive an inappropriate email or text, such as ‘sexting’.

Week 3: Screen Turn Off Week

Formerly “TV turn off week”, now we have “turn off week” to get off all screens for a week and live life. Just give it a try. It may seem jarring to your kids to have zero screens on for a week so keep everyone moving! This is a great time to bond as a family with board games, walks in the park, outings to museums and places you haven’t visited in a while. You can listen to music and just talk about “stuff”.

This month’s column has a lot of ideas for you.

Week 4: Media tune-up

This week ask your self “what do I need less of?”, “is there a technology preventing me from being productive?” This is the week to look at how your family members use technology and make sure everyone’s “media diet” is healthy and helpful, and not hurtful, for their goals of the day. Where to start? Have everyone create a diary for a day of what they use that requires a plug, batteries or ear phones; what they do with those technologies and for how long. Then, gather around the table and share your diaries together. You may be surprised by what you learn about each other and can then chat about ways you can tweak what you use and when.

Perhaps you need to help each other have a schedule for checking email and using Facebook. Perhaps people need designated “no media” times so you all can interact more as a family. The tweaks will be different for everyone but the end result is the same: to use technology more mindfully and consciously so you can have more unplugged time in the real world…and actually enjoy it!

Welcome to your family fitness focus! This month, your goal is to hone in on small steps that each family member needs to take to get a bit more fit than they are today. The two rules for the road to consider this month are simple:

• Different strokes for different folks
• There are about as many ways to get and stay fit as there are colors in the rainbow

Here we go!

Week 1: Is each person fit?

If you had to rate everyone in the family on a fitness scale, with 1 being not fit at all and 10 being uber fit, how fit would each member of your family be? Do you have a sense of what it takes for each family member to be fit?

We toss around the term “fitness” all the time but few of us really have a sense of what activity level that amounts to each day and week. New 2008 guidelines open the door to all sorts of types of activities but also drives the point home that adults and kids are not getting enough activity each day.

2008 HHS Physical Activity Guidelines for Adults:

• 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate aerobic activity/week or 75 minutes of vigorous activity.
• Muscle strength conditioning at least 2x a week.
• The guidelines do emphasis that “some activity is better than none” which allows for some give and take through out the week.

2008 HHS Physical Activity Guidelines for Children

• 1 hour of physical activity each day
• the majority of daily activity should be aerobic activity
• muscle conditioning at least 3x a week
• bone conditioning at least 3x a week
• According to the guidelines, “It is important to encourage young people to participate in physical activities that are appropriate for their age, that are enjoyable, and that offer variety.”

So, how do you start this month in figuring it all out?

Step 1: jot down how much activity you are all doing now and what activities everyone is participating in.

Step 2: find out what everyone wants to do to have fun while moving.

Step 3: take an honest look at everyone’s health status so you can be realistic about where each person is starting from and what special health goals each person may have to have. Is every family member just needing to stay fit? Is there someone who has a special health issue such as a diabetes, a heart condition, or obesity where an exercise plan may need to be under doctor’s supervision and with the help of a trainer? These are important considerations as you determine what path each person in your family, adults and kids, needs to start out on to get physically fit.

Step 3: while the new government guidelines are where you all want to end up, you won’t get there over night. Start small and add to your exercise prgram over time. If someone is currently doing nothing, start with 1x a week for 15-20 minutes and build from there. And, remember that walking counts when you are starting out from an inactive state.

Step 4:keep an eye on fun, variety and family fun. Find fitness times during the week you can all do something together even if you’re just taking a walk or tossing a ball around for a while. The goal is to be active every day and build from what you are doing now.

(Image: CDC e-Card)

Week 2: Team Sports are not the only path to fitness

Team sports are wonderful, especially for kids, but they are not the only path towards fitness. In fact, just because a child, or adult, participates in team sports, doesn’t mean that person is fit. That sport just focuses on the skills needed for that sport and may not condition the entire body. Additionally, for kids, we have to keep in mind that they will not be able to keep up team sports participation as intensily once they become teens or young adults. In fact, by middle school, 70% of kids who had played team sports usually stop.

Encourage your kids to participate in team sports…but help them find individual sports, too. That’s the true path to life-long fitness that will help them bridge the gap some day in the not too distant future when they are no longer kids and find themselves young adults. Some amazing and fun individual sports to think about exposing your kids to include swimming, tennis, dancer, aerobics, yoga, running, biking, hiking, weight lifting, martial arts, walking, fencing, and golf.

Week 3: The kid who won’t ride a bike: The Moral of the Story

Remember my rule for the road “different strokes for different folks”? That applies to so many kids and is important to remember when it comes to helping them find sports they want to try. We learned that a couple years ago with our youngest daughter and bike riding. She can do it, and competently, but hates it. It’s truly not her thing. Put her in hiking shoes, though, and she can lap just about anyone through the longest of trails and the narrowest of paths and keep on going long after we’ve all collapsed with our water bottles. We tried every parenting trick in the book to get her to ride that bike. In the end, we eventually caved when she came to us saying: “It’s my body…why should any one care how I move it.”

Help your kids find the activities they love doing and don’t sweat it if it isn’t quite what you had in mind or what other kids are doing. As long as they are moving and having fun, who are we to judge? After all, it is their bodies!

Week 4: Fun Matters!

With so many ways to stay fit, there’s no reason fitness needs to be a grind or boring. Rule for the road #2: “There’s as many ways to stay fit as there are colors of the rainbow!” If the color of the current activity starts to fade and become dull, time to pick out a new one that reenergizes you again. The same holds true for your kids. So much is asked of our kids these days that their fit time needs to be a release…and a blast!

Closing Thoughts

Keep in mind that in addition to physicial activity, to be truly fit and healthy our bodies have to be fed correctly, our souls stimulated and our minds allowed to flex. We already talked about nutrition last month so keep that going. Soon enough we’ll cover how to keep our souls fed. Remember, small steps….

Just like cars and machines need proper oils to for the parts to move correctly and the right gasoline to run efficiently, and run at all, so, too, do our bodies need the equivalent of those things in liquids and foods. Over the course of a day, we need just the right amount of liquids to stay hydrated and foods to stay nourished to

• Keep our body’s many functions working properly
• To help our body with the many things we do each day
• To maximize brain power

The problem most people, adults and kids alike, are not really sure what they should be eating and drinking and are actually bored with the foods they are eating. So, this month we’re going to focus on how to jazz up our eating in some simple and fun ways and to bust a couple myths that have a way of derailling our best of intentions at staying healthy.

February: Family Nutrition

Week 1: Dr. Gwenn’s Golden Rule of food: food should always be fun

Do you remember as a kid being told to “eat everything on your plate” and being served things that you really hated? Those are definintely pitfalls we may be inadvertenly doing to our kids. Eating should be enjoyable and social. Food should be something everyone gets a say in and looks forward to, including kids. We have to remember that although we are guiding our kids to experience different foods, they are not clones of us and we may not like the foods we like. While kids are growing up, I don’t believe it is fair to force a food upon a child. I do think it is fair to expect them to try it but have a back up plan so they don’t go hungry if that trial flops.

To spice up your food life, try making a game out of creating the meals. Make a few food wheels out of paper plates. On the outside write down different foods and make a simple arrow out of cardboard you can pin on. You can have a different spin wheel for the different food groups (main dish, veggies, starch, dessert). Each person in the family spins one wheel and what they land on they pick for that meal. You can even make a spin wheel with new foods you’ve all wanted to try. By the end of the week, you’ll not only have new combinations of foods but everyone will now be involved. Kids who are invovled in the kitchen tend to want to eat what they create!

Week 2: Dr. Gwenn’s Golden Rule of Liquids: Drink, Drink, Drink!

While there is no science behind the 8 glasses of water a day, there is common sense. That amount of water keeps us drinking all day long so we are never thirsty and always well hydrated. All too often, all of us, and our kids, go far too long between drinks. Did you know that hunger is often a sign of thirst? Next time your kids ask for a snack, offer a big, cold glass of water and see if the feeling goes way.

Three pitfalls you need to watch with liquids. First, juices are fine in moderation but are really empty calories.

Second, sports drinks are for sports and not daily hydration or a casual drink. Sports drinks are also wonderful for times of illness.

Third, there really is no reason growing kids “need” soda. As a treat, you can consider a small glass of a sugar-free soda or a 100-calorie soda but watch the daily drinking of soda due to the sugar and caffeine.

Week 3: Milk isn’t just for babies

Many kids don’t like milk but they do like chocolate or strawberries. If your kids are among the many who can’t stand milk, flavor it with whatever you want. Studies show, as I explained in this month’s column, that the extra calories are a myth.

But, milk isn’t the only way to build strong bones. You can get calcium other ways, too. The key is to pay attention to it and get your kids involved so they know this is important.

Week 4: Are any foods “bad”?

I don’t view foods as “good” or “bad. I don’t even view them as “healthy” or “unhealthy”. I try to get kids to see that all foods have a role in a healthy, balanced diet if eaten in moderation and if they take into account their over all eating and exercise plan.

Kids who learn to incorporate the more sugary foods into their overall diet tend to not crave those foods when available to them where as kids who are limited to those same foods tend to binge when they have access to them.

There are many ways to handle this. Some families plan a small treat every day – such as dessert with dinner. Other families try to be very health during the school and work week then splurge a bit on the weekend. The key is to loosen the reins at some point during the week because that is the natural way to eat.

What about special events and parties? Teach your kids to plan for those by eating extra healthy leading up to the party or event and right after and to exercise more that week.

Your goal this week is to look at your philosophy about treats and find a way to introduce something you have been fearful of introducing. You can do it – the key is talking with your family and coming up with a plan! If we do this right, our kids will start to think about what they are eating and avoid mindless eating, which is how weight problems begin.