“Abbotsford is fortunate to have all the ingredients for health, including climate, trails, facilities and programs. I challenge all of you to meet the 5-2-1-0 challenge:

• Enjoy 5 or more vegetables and fruits every day
• Reduce your screen time to less than 2 hours per day of your leisure time
• Engage in moderate physical activity for at least 1 hour per day
• Choose to eat healthy and eliminate sugar sweetened drinks for your children”

We are thrilled to see this challenge, and hope that all of Abbotsford joins in! Click here to see Mayor Peary’s challenge (page 3) in The Pulse, the Abbotsford News’ healthy living insert, as well as two other pieces on the 5-2-1-0 guideline! Also, check out some resources on living 5-2-1-0:

• Live 5-2-1-0 page and downloadable resource sheet in English and Punjabi
• Check out 5-2-1-0 on the Childhood Obesity Foundation‘s website and downloadable resources for families of kids ages 3-5
• Visit the HealthyFamiliesBC page for more tips on healthy living
• Concerns about healthy weights? Check out our resource lists for Abbotsford and Prince George.
• More resources on 5-2-1-0 living from 5-2-1-0 Let’s Go!, a US-based non-profit community organization dedicated to helping kids live healthy lives.

(Photo: Mayor George Peary, right, offers a healthy snack to SCOPE Lead Dr. Shazhan Amed, centre, and Child Health BC Manager Mary Lou Matthews, left.)

The Childhood Obesity Foundation recently launched a new program called Screen Smart! Screen Smart is a program for elementary schools, designed for children in grades K-7. It aims to:

1. Increase awareness among students (and their families) of how much time students spend in front of screens
2. Reduce students’ recreational screen time to less than 2 hours per day (or maintain that level if already achieved)

Reducing inactive screen time has many benefits from better grades and school performance to improved health and well-being. To increase this awareness Screen Smart asks students to think about their screen choices and how much time they spend in front of these screens. Then students are asked to think of alternative activities such as biking, swimming, reading, music etc. They are given the experience of trading 30 minutes of screen time for 30 minutes of physical activity or another fun activity that they have chosen…TRADE30.

Screen Smart does NOT ask students to give up screens altogether as they are a part of daily living and will continue to be in the future. Instead the program teaches children and their families to learn how to manage screen time.

The Screen Smart program was carefully designed to take only 10-15 minutes per day of a teacher’s time. Each Screen Smart activity supports a BC-prescribed learning outcome. The program is most effective when used as an annual event at school. Over time, schools can build a culture that encourages and supports active lifestyles.

Screen Smart will is available to Canadian schools, free of charge, on the Screen Smart website which is a micro- site of the Childhood Obesity Foundation. Visit us at: www.screensmartschools.ca

This post comes to you from SCOPE’s partner organization, the Childhood Obesity Foundation. For more on this great Canadian non-profit organization, click here.

I came across a fantastic post this week on cooking with kids from @weeklybite, who writes a really beautiful blog called, not surprisingly, Weekly Bite! Here are some of Estela’s tips for integrating your little ones into the kitchen:

Here are some tips I use when it comes to kids’ cooking:

• Make sure all hair is pulled back
• Always have them wash their hand before, during (if needed), and after cooking.
• Keep all sharp objects out of reach.
• When cooking with your child, choose a time in the day where you won’t be rushed. Mid-morning or early afternoon works well for us.
• Keep kid friendly utensils handy such as wooden spoons, non-breakable bowls, measuring cups, cookie cutters, and a wire whisk.

Here are 10 easy ways to include kids in the kitchen (via superkidsnutrition.com)

• Set the table
• Wash fruits and vegetables
• Take foods out of the refrigerator or pantry
• Set the timer and give updates on how much time is left
• Measure ingredients
• Stir ingredients in a bowl
• Read the recipe
• Spread or layer ingredients in a pan before baking
• Cut out items using a plastic cookie cutter
• Help clean up and wash dishes

And… did you spot it?! Many of those activities to involve kids more in their food preparation ALSO involve physical activity! It’s a great opportunity to build your relationship with your children, help them take responsibility for food preparation and choices, and build lasting skills in healthy food preparation that will serve them throughout their lives. Go right now and read the rest of the post!

This is great! Organized sports are a great way for kids of all ages to get regular physical activity. At the same time, it’s important to remember that physical activity should also involve unstructured playtime. Our Live 5-2-1-0 guideline (and many doctors) recommends at least an hour of physical activity every day for every child.

Things you might not think of as “physical activity” can be great ways to get moving: activities that get your heart rate up for a sustained period of time, in or outside of the house, will help you and your family be healthy:

Indoor:

• Helping with vigorous cleaning (ie mopping, loading the dishwasher, collecting the garbage, etc.)
• Playing on an active game console (like the Nintendo Wii)
• Playing active group games like Charades or Twister.
• Kids over 5 who have a safe place in the house can wrestle (safely! – try this with supervision)
• Dancing to music
• Older kids might like to use indoor fitness equipment (ie a treadmill or stationary bike)

Outdoor:

• Raking leaves or doing other outdoor work (shoveling snow, washing the car, mowing the lawn, etc)
• Backyard games like racing, jumping, or climbing trees
• Riding bikes around the neighbourhood
• Playing at the playground (try jungle gyms, open fields, and swings for variety)
• Older kids might develop fitness routines such as jogging for regular activity or to support training for a sport
• Tossing around a baseball or basketball at home or in a park
• Playing tennis, basketball or football, or a made-up game on an outdoor court with your friends (elementary and high schools usually have outdoor courts and spaces to play that are open to everyone outside school hours)

For more ideas and information about getting your physical activity in:

• Healthy Families BC has a great page on physical activity with suggestions for how to get more active.
• Physical Activity Guides from the Public Health Agency of Canada for kids (5-11) and youth (12-18)
• Early childhood (3-5 years) physical activity resources from LEAP-BC
• Resources from the Childhood Obesity Foundation for Active Play for Children 2-5 years

We’ve noticed that the hardest part of our Live 5-2-1-0 guideline for some families is the last part: “Choose ZERO sugary drinks.”

Many Canadians enjoy sweet drinks, but are we overdoing it? Drink companies provide a seemingly endless variety of sugar sweetened drinks, many of which are heavily marketed to children. These drinks are often promoted as energy enhancers, thirst quenchers, performance boosters and even as a heathy part of a balanced diet. So it’s no wonder sweet drinks are so popular, especially with young kids and youth.

The fact is, sugary drinks, such as pop, energy drinks and fruit punch, provide little nutritional value and are packed with extra calories. This can can lead to the development of unhealthy weights and future health problems such as diabetes and heart disease.

So how do limit sugary drinks and encourage your family to choose healthy drinks such as water and milk?

Here are some helpful tips from the Healthy Families BC website.

When Eating Out

• Order smaller sized drinks and say no to the free refills.
• Add flavor to water by asking for lemon or lime slices.

When At Home

• Try making your own smoothies and drinks at home so you can control the amount of added sugar.
• Serve drinks in smaller glasses or choose smaller sized drink boxes to stock your fridge.

At the Grocery Store

• Be sure to read the labels and be aware of the sugar content.
• Sugary drinks should not be on your shopping list at every trip to the grocery store.

When Out and About

• Pack a reusable water bottle with you on the go. Keeping hydrated will reduce the urge for sugary drinks.
• Always pack a water bottle in your child’s backpack.

For more tips click here to see the full article, “Sugary Drinks – Less is Best”.

This article is re-posted from SCOPE’s partner, Healthy Abbotsford.

Today we came across this article, “Top 50 Blogs for Understanding and Preventing Childhood Obesity” and I wanted to share it with you. It’s a great list of web logs that is broken down into sections, such as:

• General/Personal Stories
• Top Fitness Blogs
• Top Food Blogs
• Top Blogs by an Expert
• Top Blogs by Moms

The article focuses on blogs that relate to childhood obesity prevention, and gives a link and a brief description of each blog. I’m familiar with several of the blogs listed, and though I haven’t reviewed all of them, this list looks like it’s covering some great resources and sources of peer support especially for families who may already be struggling with healthy living. It’s worth a look for everyone, and I hope you report back and let us know what you think of them!

In a time where physical activity is declining among school-aged children, walking to and from school offers a vital opportunity for physical activity. There are many reasons why kids don’t walk to school as much – safety, busy schedules and longer distances from school are some – but there are thousands of parents, kids and communities working to make walking to school easier for kids.

October is International Walk to School Month, and we encourage you to get walking – a great way to get at least one hour of physical activity per day – see the Live 5-2-1-0 page for more suggestions! Check out Canada’s International Walk to School page, the national Active Safe Routes to School project, and BC’s walk to school organization, HASTE-BC for more suggestions on how to make walking safe and fun for kids.

Some great reasons to walk to school, the park, the rec centre or your friend’s house:

• In many communities with traffic problems, it’s faster!
• It’s a great way to spend time with friends
• It’s good physical activity
• It helps you know your neighbourhood better
• It helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to climate change

Recently researchers studied primary school children in Hong Kong and found that around 5% skipped breakfast at the start of the study.  Researchers found that breakfast skippers experienced a greater increase in their Body Mass Index (BMI) over the two year period of the study when compared to children who did not skip breakfast. Although it’s not clear yet why this happens, researchers concluded that these results are important indications that eating breakfast is a behaviour that we should encourage, and skipping breakfast is not effective as a form of weight control in the long term.

You can read a brief summary of the research article here.

Some other articles on breakfast skipping in children:

• National Public Radio: ABetter Breakfast Can Boost Brainpower
• KidsHealth.org: Ready, Set, Breakfast!
• WatchMojo Health Blogs: Breakfast Recipes for Every Morning

Canadian Living recently published 7 Tips to Prevent Childhood Obesity, and we think you should take a look. Not only do they include tips that closely follow SCOPE’s Live 5-2-1-0 guideline (which is used by the Childhood Obesity Foundation in Canada and the American Academy of Pediatrics in the USA, among many other organizations), they make some other strong suggestions, too.

Our one caution is that if you are concerned your child has an issue with weight, we suggest parents discuss these concerns with their child’s physician. Calculating BMI at home can be complicated, and it’s important to get help from a physician to understand the results. Check out SCOPE’s resource page (for Prince George or Abbotsford) for more suggestions on what you can do if you are concerned about your child’s weight.

Congratulations Abbotsford, great work to Healthy Abbotsford and SCOPE Coordinator Laura Loudon for her hard work in mobilizing the contributions of her community toward the goal of an upgraded walking trail that will provide lots of active fun for beautiful Abbotsford for years to come!

Check out Abbotsford’s contributions to the Walking Challenge website here, or this great article on walking 10,000 steps on Healthy Abbotsford’s website to get some great ideas on how to reach your Live 5-2-1-0 Guideline – walking is an excellent way to get at least 1 hour of physical activity every day!