Healthy Children

Smita Guha, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in Early Childhood Education at St. John’s University, New York. She has over ten years experience working with young children and over 15 years as a faculty in university.

This practical guide gives teachers, parents, community leaders, and elementary-school administrators some ideas for how and why they should motivate kids to exercise and eat right. Guha, who holds a PhD in elementary education, offers some basic, unsurprising, but worthwhile strategies: schedule exercise breaks during class, and make it easy for kids to walk or bike to school. Guha raises some interesting questions, such as whether obesity leads to behavioral issues or vice versa, and cites the main reasons for the increase in childhood obesity: an increase in soda consumption, an unhealthy decrease in fruit and vegetable consumption, a decrease in physical activity in school, and an increase in sedentary TV watching, computer usage, and video games. Suggested activities in the appendixes include one for making a Healthy Food Rainbow for the wall and asking kids to cut out or draw fruits and vegetables to attach to it. Guha supplies a long list of children’s books about nutrition as well as reference sources and discussion questions. In all, a workmanlike summary of the case for healthy living.

• Introduction Chapter 1: Motivating and engaging children to be active agents of health behaviorChapter 2: Nutrition education unitChapter 3: Importance of physical exerciseChapter 4: Social and emotional challenges for children with health issuesChapter 5: Role of parents and family in providing nutrition education for their childrenChapter 6: Involvement of the community in promoting healthy development for the childrenChapter 7: Strategies to work collaboratively to prevent obesity epidemicAppendix A: Workshop programs Appendix B: Lessons across curriculum