When it comes to green, red, and yellow, what pops up in your mind? Well, it might be traffic lights or the national flag of the Republic of Congo. However, vegetables and fruits can also fit into this category without a doubt! It could be somewhat surprising for people who only take leafy greens as vegetables. As we are able to obtain rich nutrients from leafy green vegetables, especially those dark green ones, teachers and parents have made us eat them as much as possible since we were just kindergarteners. With their boring taste and dull color, we unnoticeably start avoiding choosing to eat them.
Fortunately, “Fruits & Veggies- More Matters” is definitely a helpful and interesting website! It concentrates on helping people living in the United States rise the intake of both fruits and vegetables. Besides, it is a national public health initiative that collaborates with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and is led by Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH). As a result, all of their recipes and nutrition information meet the standards set by CDC. People engaged by this website do not need to worry about its credibility.
What exactly caught my attention on this website was “Healthy Kids”. Hit this button and you will find out more efficient ways to give children a boost to eat better amounts of vegetables and fruits! It gives out lots of useful tips that could highly fascinate children. Except official education, which teaches children the benefits of consuming vegetables and fruits, Healthy Kids sheds light on using applications such as nutrition-related games, delicious meals with veggies and fruits, and children involvement in preparing & purchasing foods.
Prior to visiting the website, I thought
if I had to do a nutrition education on making kids improve vegetables and fruits consumption, I would focus on telling their parents how to cook delicious dishes including sufficient amounts of vegetables and fruits. I did not realize that I could directly educate children by using coloring and activity pages! Turning normal fruits and vegetables into cute characters would fascinate young age kids! Since these images may easily root in their mind, when seeing fruits and vegetables next time in supermarkets, there are higher possibilities for kids to begin regarding these foods as fun figures instead of foods that they used to pick out from their plates.
Another interesting fact is that this website also provides some methods to help parents deal with their vegetarian kids! Not only does the website teach how to cultivate children’s interest for eating more fruits and vegetables, but also let parents know several possible ways to do varieties with vegetables and make sure their kids are having balanced diet.
If I were a nutrition educator, I would specifically like to take advantage of this work sheet on the left. First, it is important that children get vegetables and fruits from different colors as they consist of different kinds of nutrients. Secondly, by doing this activity, children would find it more fun eating vegetables and fruits! They would focus more on their colors and might ignore their tastes which they often consider them less yummy than other foods. Thirdly, this sheet would make children want to eat as many fruits and vegetables as they could. This is because children tend to feel they are winners by filling all the blanks. Although there are many resources on the website, this sheet allows children to increase fruits and vegetables intake from more than one strategies!
Healthy Kids is such a wonderful web tool to help children bond positive relationship with fruits and veggies! So, make your kids be friends with them while they’re still young and let them be life-long friends!
Check out Healthy Kids (from “Fruits & Veggies- More Matters”): http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/get-kids-to-eat-fruits-and-vegetables