Press Release: Feed Your Family Right!

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Feed Your Family Right!
Chock-full of useful information to help
families improve the way they eat.

Most parents have the very best intentions when it comes to taking care of themselves and their families. But wanting to do something—like eat more healthfully and be more physically active—and actually taking the steps to do so are two different things. A key stumbling block to making permanent lifestyle changes is that most people think the changes need to be radical—that they must go on a strict diet or spend hours each day at a gym. “People need to think in terms of making progress—not achieving perfection—when it comes to their food, fitness, and lifestyle habits,” suggests Elisa Zied, a registered dietitian, national media spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, and mother of two. “Making just a few small changes in individual eating and fitness habits, and learning to support other family members who have unique needs and preferences, can make it easier for families as a whole to achieve and maintain healthier body weights and improved overall health.”

To help families start moving in a more positive and healthy direction, Zied, along with Ruth Winter, M.S., have written Feed Your Family Right! How to Make Smart Food and Fitness Choices for a Healthy Lifestyle (© March 2007, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., www.elisazied.com). Taking into account the many factors that influence body weight, including genes, environment, and stage of life, Zied gives families practical, real-world nutrition and fitness solutions. Feed Your Family Right! helps each family member set realistic personal weight and fitness goals, and provides ideas to help everyone achieve their goals. Here are a few tips Zied offers to help families get started on a healthier eating and fitness track.

1. Get the family involved. Creating a healthy lifestyle can be a family affair. Whether it’s setting the table, planning a dinner menu, setting an oven timer, or measuring out or stirring ingredients, all family members—even kids—can participate. Even if everyone has a different schedule, sharing a few meals a week can make a big difference in a family’s eating habits and sense of unity and togetherness.

2. Find positive ways to deal with picky eaters. Try offering smaller portions, or a choice of two
different vegetables. You can easily sneak some fruits and vegetables into meals. For instance, you can add mashed bananas or applesauce to pancake batter, make a smoothie or jello with fresh berries, or add shredded carrots to chicken meatballs. Zied offers lots of other delicious yet simple ideas to get more nutrients into foods families generally enjoy.

3. Make healthier choices when eating out. Many restaurants now make it easier to make healthier choices. Instead of having your usual French fries or soda/pop, you can choose apple slices and milk. Or have soda/pop as a special treat only when you’re at a restaurant. For adults and children alike, downsizing portion sizes can make a big difference: choosing a small order of French fries instead of a large one saves more than 300 calories!

4. Try tasty oven-fried drumsticks. One of the great recipes included in Feed Your Family Right! is for Oven-Fried Chicken Drumsticks. They are easy to prepare, tasty, and much healthier than standard fried chicken. It’s one of Zied’s family favorites that is sure to become one of yours, too.

5. Enjoy chocolate chip cookies! Who knew chocolate chip cookies could be healthful?! Zied’s
Incredibly Good Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies are so delicious it’s hard to believe they’re low-fat.

6. Make fitness a family affair. With today’s busy families, making time for physical activity can be difficult. To make fitness a family affair, find fun activities you will all enjoy and do them at least once or twice a week. Go on a treasure hunt around the yard, set up an obstacle course in your home or back yard, play hide-and-seek outside after dinner, or go for a “penny” walk before dinner. Not only will everyone benefit from the exercise, you’ll likely have good “together” time as well.

These are just a few of the do-able ideas and tips Zied and Winter offer in Feed Your Family Right! “If you take small simple steps to create an overall environment that supports healthy eating habits, you won’t be overwhelmed,” Zied reminds us. “By making nutritious foods visible and readily available, and finding fun ways to add physical activities to do as a family, you’ll be more likely to achieve and maintain healthier body weights and improve your family’s overall health.”

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Key Topics:

• The latest data shows that nearly 67 percent of U.S. adults 20 years of age and older are overweight or obese and more than one of every five children and adolescents are overweight. (National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control)

• Being overweight in early childhood increases the risk of being overweight or obese in adolescence; children who were overweight at least once between the ages of 2 and 4-1/2 were five times more likely to be overweight at age 12 compared with those who were not overweight any time between ages 2 and 4-1/2. (Pediatrics, 2006)

• Women who gained as little as 7 pounds between pregnancies (even if they did not become overweight) raised the risk of complications such as diabetes and high blood pressure and even stillbirth during a second pregnancy. (AP, 9/29/06)

Although one of the national health objectives for the year 2010 is to reduce the prevalence of obesity among adults to less than 15%, current data indicates that the situation is worsening rather than improving.

In Feed Your Family Right!, Zied and Winter integrate what is known about the key influences on body weight—genetics, environment, and stage of life—to provide practical, real-world solutions and strategies to help each family member, no matter what age or stage of life they’re in, set realistic personal weight and fitness goals, and take small steps to achieve those goals individually and as a family.

Zied speaks confidently, passionately and, when appropriate, humorously about the easy, gradual steps anyone can take to achieve and maintain healthy body weights and improve their overall health. She can share with your audience:

• The two things all parents must do when teaching their children about good nutrition
• Top tips for feeding the under twos
• Tips for handling picky eaters, food pushers, food cops, relentless ranters, and sneaky snackers
• Ten easy (and delicious) ways to incorporate more vegetables into your family’s meals
• Six ideas for getting your family to eat more fruit
• Fitting fast food into your family food plan
• Five ways to take the grind out of exercise
• Three healthy breakfast recipes everyone will make time to prepare and enjoy
• Ways your kitchen may be making you put on pounds
• How family mealtimes can help keep unwanted pounds at bay
• The dangers of portion distortion