One of our readers, April K, shared with us three wonderful websites she found about health & kids via her charge’s school. The school had sent home a paper listing a lot of helpful websites for parents. April thought that the Regarding Nannies’ readers and other nannies & parents would like to know about them as well. Today she shares three of the websites that focus on health & kids.
Be Active Kids
This is a program that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina developed about promoting good nutrition, and physical activity in children. They teach this by using characters, game and coloring pages, along with a free curriculum you can request if you live in North Carolina. They have a great link about preschoolers and how much time they should be participating in physical activity. Along with a link to the government My Pyramid site that is just for preschoolers. This site also has some printable physical activity calendars that you can download and use. The only problem that I found with the website is the fact that some of the links did not work.
This website is part of the Federal Governments plan to help American’s have a healthier lifestyle. This website is very easy to navigate and has many neat features. They have a whole section of the website just devoted to pregnant women and women who are breastfeeding. They also have a section of the website for kids both 2-5 year olds and 6-11 year olds, however there was not an area for children who are older than 11 years old. The 2-5 year old section also has sample menus and ideas on how to handle picky eaters including more ideas and some common types of picky eaters. The site has coloring pages, poster and an on-line game, you use food and exercise to power a rocket ship to another planet. The thing I thought was the neatest was the fact that you could look up a food and it would tell you what part of the pyramid it came under, it is called the “foodapedia”, it also gives you a calorie amount for the food.
Kids Health Website
This was a very neat website for parents, kids and teenagers. It includes TONS of information. Under each heading (ex parents) there was probably 15 + topics and those were broken down even more. Under the parenting heading there was things like positive parenting, a pregnancy calendar and recipes and healthy ideas. The kids heading had a neat section that talked about what will happen when you go and see different professionals, like nurses, doctors and even therapist. The teen section had a lot of wonderful information just for teenagers, such as about mental health, drugs and alcohol, sexual health and safe driving. This site was the first that I looked at that had a good list of things for teenagers and that is an important age when dealing with health issues.
Other helpful resources:
Healthy Diet & Lifestyle, Food Groups, Nutrition Before & During Pregnancy, Child Nutrition, Physical Activity http://krilloil.com/blog/
The Food and Nutrition Information Center http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/
Nutritional Values For Common Foods And Products http://www.nutritionvalue.org/
NutritionData.com: Nutrition facts, calories in food, labels and more http://nutritiondata.self.com/
April Krause (Gradowski) is currently a live-out nanny for a 4 year old and a 2 year old in Northville, Michigan. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Albion College in 2005. She attended the English Nanny and Governess School in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. After completing her nanny training she worked in the Washington D.C. area for a family with three girls. She then was the lead teacher in a 2 year old classroom for a day care center in Westland, Michigan.
April currently lives in Livonia, Michigan, is married to a wonderful man, and has 2 step-daughters and a cat. She serves on the Michigan Professional Nanny Association (MPNA) Board of Directors and participates in several national and international nanny support forums.
Very interesting topics.I am looking this type of topics, I need more informations because everyone knows "Health is wealth" is very much known to all and everyone wants good health.That means no one wants to leave this wealth. So, Let us build a food habit discipline, keep pace with work, rest and or exercise to Achieve good health, The ultimate wealth.
Our Healthier Living