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Want your kids to get enough calcium? Set a good example and drink milk too
Hey moms, if you want your daughters to grow strong and healthy, serve them milk, and pour a glass for yourself, too! The most available source of calcium in our food supply comes from milk and foods made with milk, so it’s not surprising that those who drink more milk get more calcium.
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Kids & Snacking
Snacking is a very important part of a kid’s day. Growing children often need more food energy than they can easily consume at a single meal. In fact, about 20 percent of a child's energy and nutrients come from snacks.
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Starting the Day off Right
Let’s face it, we’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important  meal of the day, but all too often we not only neglect it for ourselves, but don’t enforce and encourage our kids to eat in the morning
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Eating Properly Can Only Help
Adequate and proper nutrition is important for kids as they grow and develop. It is compounded in sports, when athletic performance becomes increasingly paramount for their success. It is easier for kids to reach for a bag of chips or a can of soda at school...
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What Fuels our Body?
Our bodies are all about energy. And energy provides the fuel our body needs to do work. Since our body is always working, it needs continuous energy.
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"DIET" vs. "DIET"
There's a big difference between a "diet" (i.e. a regimented food plan to help you lose weight), and your diet (i.e. what you consume on a regular basis), and this is a big part of the problem with confusion among all of us.
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Obesity, Are Our Children At Risk?
"That's just baby fat," "so he's a little chunky," "no need
to worry, she'll outgrow it."
Heard these expressions before? I bet you have, probably you
have even stated them. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad
news but statistics reveal that our present generation of
"future" adults is at an alarming risk level
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What Fuels Our Body?
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Our bodies are all about energy. And energy provides the fuel our body needs to do work. Since our body is always working, it needs continuous energy. To satisfy this need humans utilize two basic sources for energy, water and food. Unfortunately that doesn't mean we have to eat all the time, because fortunately ( or unfortunately) we have the ability to store our energy. Energy balance refers to the relationship of how much energy we take in to how much energy we give off. If we give off less energy than we take in then a positive energy balance occurs and this positive energy balance may be stored as fat. Under normal circumstances, more than 95% of the food energy we take in (from protein, carbohydrates, and fat) is digested and absorbed to provide the body's energy needs.
In general, our bodies completely break down (or oxidize) fat and carbohydrates. Protein works a little bit differently and is only partially broken down. The action of breaking down, or oxidizing, these compounds yields energy or kcals. Carbohydrates and proteins give us 4 kcals of energy per gram we ingest and fat gives us 9 kcals per gram.
Now, if you ask someone about calories, they know what you're talking about, yet the actual term that has become commonplace among us is actually a pretty complicated definition. It is one that comes straight from a physics textbook. A Calorie (or kilocalorie) describes the available energy in food. It is the amount of heat require to raise the temperature of 1,000 grams (Kilogram) of water by 1 degree Celsius. Paul Hewitt, a self described conceptual physicist put it this way: "To the weight watcher, the peanut contains 10 Calories. To the physicist, it releases 10,000 calories( or 41,850 joules) of energy when burned or digested".
How much you need to eat depends on many factors, including your age, your gender, and how active you are. However, as a rule of thumb, according the USDA, recommended intake for children, teen girls, active women and most men = 2,200 calories/day, teen boys and active men = 2,800 calories/day, and many women and older adults = 1,600 calories/day. |
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