The South is famous for its competitive sports teams and tasty cuisine, but states like Alabama, Louisiana, and Kentucky are becoming known for something not so famous-the highest obesity rates in the country.  

According to a report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert wood Johnson Foundation ten of the eleven U.S. states with the highest obesity rates are located in the south, with Mississippi in the number one spot for the sixth year in a row. The analysis, F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010, looked at average obesity rates from 2007-2009 versus 2006-2008.  The results show rates are above 25 percent in 38 states, hypertension has increased, and diabetes increased by 19 percent in the past year. But why?

The report states there is a cause and effect relationship between socioeconomic status and obesity, and “those that earned $15,000 or less per year were more likely to be obese than those who earned $50,000 or more per year.”

Do you think the connection between income and obesity is highly relevant? What do you think could be done to reduce this epidemic?

-Victoria, KIWI Editorial Intern

Next time you’re cooking dinner for the family, put out a plate of vegetables for kids to snack on–it will actually increase the amount of vegetables they eat during dinner!

According to a study out of Penn State, eating vegetables as a first course is a smart way to get children to eat more vegetables overall.

The study looked at 51 preschoolers at a daycare center. The children were provided with no carrots, 30 grams, 60 grams, or 90 grams of carrots as their first course. About 10 minutes later they were served a lunch of pasta, broccoli, low-fat milk, and unsweetened applesauce.

The kiddies who did not eat any carrots, consumed about 23 grams of broccoli. The ones who received 30 grams of carrots ate 50 percent more than those who had none. And, the children who ate 60 grams of carrots as a first course ate nearly 63 grams of broccoli, tripling those who had no carrots at all.

So now, put out some brightly colored vegetables as a first course (think carrots, red peppers, broccoli, tomatoes)–and make sure the kids see you snacking on them too!

-Nicole McGovern

My mom always stressed the importance of everyone eating dinner together as a family–as often as possible. As much as I hate to admit it, she was right (and there’s scientific proof to back her!). A new study shows that regular family dinners can actually improve asthmatic children’s lung functions.

The study found that asthma is directly related to separation anxiety. So, eating together as a family can provide little ones with a sense of security and regularity, therefore reducing their separation anxiety symptoms.

Family interaction and dinner conversation is super-important too, so keep the bickering to a minimum! Let everyone take turns discussing their day or what they’ve got planned for the week ahead. It’s also a great time to casually check up on your children’s asthma: ensure they’ve been taking their meds and always have their inhaler handy. Kids will feel protected just knowing that there is an adult looking out for them.

So this Sunday, take a look at everyone’s schedule and try to plan at least four nights where you can all sit down to dinner. And of course, feel free to try some of KIWI’s delicious (and healthy!) recipes.

-Nicole McGovern

The Food and Drug Administration is fighting obesity in the country, and one of its goals is to ask food manufacturers to put nutritional information (including the calorie and fat amounts) on the front of food packages. Sounds like a great idea to me! But there’s one little snag: Before they can ask companies to move labels to the front of boxes, the FDA has to look at serving sizes.

Suggested serving sizes on labels can be pretty misleading. Take for example the bag of (all-natural, trans fat-free, baked) chips I had with my lunch today. The label lists 120 calories and 4.5 grams of fat—not super healthy, but not too bad. However, even though it’s a small bag that’s clearly meant to be eaten in one sitting, the serving size is 1.5 servings per bag. That boosts the calories up to 200 and the fat to nearly 7 grams (and it means I’ll be spending more time on the treadmill tonight!).

Many serving sizes just don’t reflect the way people actually eat. Children’s cereals may list a serving size of 3/4 cup, but kids often eat twice that amount, if not more, according to this article from The New York Times. And those prepackaged, supposedly heart-healthy soups that are so handy for on-the-go lunches? They could be meant for two meals, not one.

It all goes to show how important it is to read nutritional labels, even on things that are supposedly healthy. And nothing beats whole foods that aren’t prepackaged: You don’t have to wonder whether that apple is one serving or two!

Michelle, KIWI Editor

Here’s how to eat every last item in your kitchen—without a trip to the store!

One day last March, Crystal Paine, a Kansas mom of three, wanted to save some money by going a few extra days without a trip to the grocery store. So she headed to her pantry, found shelves full of food she hadn’t used, and got cooking. It was eye-opening to see how well her family could eat without several (expensive) trips to the store. So now, they take on the challenge of eating what they have for eight to ten days at a time almost every month. “I think my frugal nature carried over to my pantry,” Paine says. “I didn’t want to let things go to waste.”

Paine is onto something: By making an effort to eat through the things they’ve already bought, families across the country are becoming much more aware of what they consume. In the process, they’re saving money, getting creative in the kitchen, and teaching their kids an important lesson about avoiding wastefulness. Are you up for the challenge?

Getting started

If the thought of eating through your pantry seems more idealistic than practical, think again. It doesn’t have to be hard. Here, some common reasons you might resist—and the simple reasons you can still go for it.

• “I just don’t have the time.” Cooking with what you have doesn’t necessarily take more time—especially since fewer ingredients often means less time. “It’s all in the planning,” says Anne Marie Carver, an Arlington, Virginia, mom of one. Before you begin the challenge, spend 15 minutes taking inventory of your cupboards and freezer. That way, when it comes time for dinner you can hit the ground running. And don’t limit yourself to handling one night at a time: If you whip up double batches of minestrone and rice soup one night, you can refrigerate the leftovers for lunch the next day.
• “What happens when I run out of basic food and still have three boxes of mac and cheese left over?” You can make the challenge fit your needs—even if it means “cheating” a bit. Try eating through your pantry with only one trip to the grocery store: You can make a supermarket run in the beginning to stock up on the basics (milk, eggs, bread), or try eating what you have at home for a few days and visiting the store when you’ve gotten desperate but still have half the pantry to go. This works especially well if you plan menu ideas in advance based on what you have.
• “Pantry meals are, well, boring.” In fact, your cupboard boasts tons of opportunities for interesting dishes. Try dressing up pasta with roasted red peppers, artichokes, and anchovies, or give a spicy kick to refried beans with cumin and chili powder, suggests Carver. Got a bag of tortilla or bagel chips on hand? Crush them up as a garnish for soup or whirl them in the food processor and use in place of bread crumbs. Forcing yourself to get creative will help you see your pantry in a whole new light.

Making it fun

Involved your kid to make the pantry challenge exciting for the whole family. Some fun ways she can help:

• Get her opinion. When deciding on meals, Carver makes sure to get input from her 4-year-old daughter. “We consult every day. I find that when she’s involved in the process she’s much less likely to be fussy at dinnertime—even if it’s just a matter of going to the pantry together,” Carver says. Using up the last of the black beans from the back of your cupboard? Ask your kid if she thinks they’d work better as a soup, dip, or taco filling.
• Play a game. “We put on my daughter’s little apron and make it a game to see what’s hiding in the pantry,” says Carver. Try using Pantry Hide-and-Seek as a nutritional learning experience for your kid. Help her create a balanced meal by finding a whole grain (like whole wheat pasta), a protein (like canned tuna), and a vegetable (like canned tomatoes). Then talk about why those foods are all good choices for a meal.
• Cook to compete. If your kids are too old for hide and seek, try a cooking competition. Assign a night to each family member and put that person in charge of coming up with a creative dinner plan. (Bonus: Tweens and teens can probably cook some of the meal on their own.) When the pantry challenge is over, vote on which meal your family liked best—and remember it for next time!

Culinary inspiration

Add balance and variety with these meal ideas, which rely on cupboard and freezer staples most families have on hand.

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

-Marygrace, KIWI staff writer

It’s easy to say no to preservatives and additives with Tastybaby’s organic frozen baby food. They might be serious about nutrition, but with flavor names like “Corn in the USA” and “Peas on Earth,” TastyBaby knows how to have fun.  What’s more, all the food is gluten-free, and is packaged in reusable, BPA-free cups.  Getting a stamp of approval from eco-conscious moms like Cindy Crawford, Ali Landry, and Lisa Loeb, try a Tastybaby gift basket for a great shower gift!

– Marygrace, KIWI intern and fan of eco-consious moms

January 19 is the day this year that we celebrate the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.;  a man who changed the world. Who knows where we would be without this hero who put his life on the line so that people would  “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”?

I wonder if Dr. King’s parents, while he was growing up, ever realized how great their son would be. What did Alberta and Martin Luther King, Sr. do to create such an incredible child? What values, what inspiration did they give him? Did they know that he would improve the lives of countless people and change the face of our world? Did Barack Obama’s mother know as she held her beautiful baby in her arms that he would someday become President; that the hope of a nation would rest on her angel’s shoulders? Do any of us know what greatness lies in our children?

As parents, we all think our children are special. We love them with a biased heart.  However, the lesson of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama is that our children truly are the future of the world. This realization makes our job even more critical—raising our children with a social and environmental conscious can actually make a difference.

Let’s take these next few amazing days, the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States, to see that the potential is there for our children to make the world a better place. We are raising the next scientists, politicians, philanthropists, explorers, nutrition experts, artists, computer geniuses and more.

So, as you kiss your children goodnight on the 19th, on this crossover between two historical days, feel the power that is yours and theirs.  Infused with love and wrapped in your commitment, anything is possible.

—Maxine Wolf, CEO & Publisher, KIWI Magazine

Beyond the Ingredient Label: What’s Really in Your Pet’s Food?

Spending time preparing healthy and natural food for your family is an important concern of many busy mothers. You want your family to eat a balanced diet that not only provides the nutrition needed to live a healthy lifestyle but also enough energy to get through soccer practice and dance classes. When it comes to the four-legged family members, food selection should be just as important—our pets also depend on us for their well-being.

Many pet food companies use ingredients that, while deemed unfit for human consumption, are allowed as ingredients in pet food by the FDA and AAFCO. So, what protein ingredients should you avoid?

Meat byproducts and meat meals are carcass parts such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, bones, heads, and intestines. The animals raised for use in these ingredients are given antibiotics and hormones (which then end up in your pet’s food), and often live on factory farms that are damaging to the environment. The ingredients can contain protein from 4D animals, which is a USDA/FDA term used to describe meat that comes from animals that were dead, dying, diseased or disabled prior to being processed.

Just as important as what not to look for, you should know what ingredients should be in your furry friend’s dinner. The first ingredient on the label should be a pure protein source, such as chicken, duck or salmon. There are many high quality pet foods in natural food stores that use natural and organic protein sources, so the animals are raised without the use of antibiotics or hormones.

Feeding your pets high quality food will not only pay off with fewer vet bills, but you can also be rewarded with a longer and healthier life with your pet full of kisses, snuggling and tail wagging!

Beth Swanson

My name is Keri Marshall and I am a licensed Naturopathic Doctor in private practice in Dover, NH, and mother of two. I have a general family practice that encompasses all aspects of natural medicine including clinical nutrition, herbal medicine, homeopathy and lifestyle counseling. I enjoy organic gardening, cooking, snowboarding, camping, biking and surfing. Currently one of the big projects I am working on in my community is an effort to improve the public school hot lunch program. Recently, our school board unanimously approved removal of all trans fats from foods being served, no artificial sweeteners, and at least 50% of grains served will be whole grains.

With the information I provide, I hope to help you understand a few simple concepts, one of which is that childhood nutrition begins as early as conception. How we eat throughout pregnancy as well as how we introduce food to an infant will greatly impact lifelong nutrition and eating habits. I also hope to provide beneficial information with regard to decoding nutrition labels and de-mystifying contradictory information that we hear about in the media and what it means in our day-to-day life.

In general, children who consume Standard American Diet (SAD) meet the RDA basic guidelines for nutrition. Unfortunately, it appears that we have set the bar too low and the guidelines set by the government are fostering an epidemic of obesity and poor health. I look forward to creating a forum to discuss ways to raise the bar with regards to our children’s nutrition and explore ways to improve our own personal nutrition and lifestyle habits as parents.

–Dr. Keri Marshall MS, ND is a licensed Naturopathic Doctor who specializes in holistic pediatrics and women’s medicine.