Tips To Healthy Eating And Behaviors

Our Kentucky Living Health Club four-month challenge—a virtual private Facebook club—just launched for the second year.

An energetic group of 170 committed KL Health Club members have been sharing valuable tips while encouraging each other to stick to their wellness goals to bring about positive change. The club is made up of adults working to improve their children’s health as well as their own.

In addition, exercise physiologist and certified wellness coach Lisa Capehart is leading a 12-week online class designed to change health behaviors from the inside out.

If you missed our November health cover story, you can read it online here.

Here are some tips being shared through the club:

Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky
www.healthy-ky.org
Download What Kentucky Parents Think About Children’s Health Behavior, a six-page report on the first-ever Kentucky Parent Survey (from a 2012 random telephone sample of 1,006 parents and guardians) that looked at what moms and dads think about various health issues that impact children in the state. Click on “Data & Reports” to locate the report.

Reducing childhood obesity is a key issue for the nation and Kentucky. An interesting survey finding was that while the National Survey of Children’s Health shows 37 percent, or 4 in 10, of Kentucky school-age kids are overweight, the Kentucky Parent Survey shows parents’ perceptions are that 14 percent, or 1 in 7 kids, are overweight. Read the entire report to learn other important findings about your child’s health and their behaviors.

To determine if you or your child is obese, first accurately measure height and weight, then use the online calculator provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at www.cdc.gov—click “B” and scroll down to locate “Body Mass Calculator (BMI).”

Healthy eating for children and families
www.choosemyplate.gov
This site provides hundreds of useful tip sheets, sample menus and recipes, videos, and much more from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

For example, click on “Healthy Eating on a Budget” for tips for planning, purchasing, and preparing food on a budget, with sample menus.

Or click on “10 Tips Nutrition Education Series” for 23 tip sheets, each listing 10 tips—great to print and stick on your refrigerator.

—University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service

RunKeeper.com
“I highly recommend RunKeeper.com (the app is available on both iPhone and Android platforms). Since August 1,2012, I have run/walked 163 miles, with a duration of 40:52:03 hours, 23,066 calories burned, and 15 pounds lost! Go me!”

—Health Club member Kathy Lyons Peek, Monticello, member of South Kentucky RECC