Elementary Schoolers Learn About Eating Well & Making Smart Choices at Stop & Shop

Third and Fourth and Graders from St. Mary’s School of Branford, CT visited the Branford Stop & Shop to learn about making healthy choices in their diet. The youngsters walked the aisles with John Baillie, Health and Wellness Coordinator at the Soundview Family YMCA and certified member of the All American Council on Exercise, and learned about smart and healthy choices that they can make on a daily basis.

Stop & Shop’s Jim Keenoy, who hosted the visit says, “Healthy eating can provide a range of benefits for children including: stabilizing energy levels, sharpening their minds, and their overall health. It was a pleasure to host the students and encourage them to develop healthy eating habits which can make a huge impact on their relationship with food and give them the best opportunity to grow into healthy, confident adults.”

According to Baillie, “Moderation and education are the keys to healthy diet. It is difficult to control a child’s intake of cookies, salty snacks and other junk foods that they are attracted to, but this needs to be done in moderation, and parents need to teach children how to eat responsibly and how to make wise choices about their diets which will impact their long-term health.”

How to be a positive role model and make healthy choices:

Proper nutrition is essential for the healthy growth and development of young people. While most eating habits begin at home and families are primarily responsible for teaching children to make healthy food choices. Here are a few tips:

• Focus on overall diet rather than specific foods. To promote a lifelong healthy relationship with food, focus on eating whole, minimally processed, nutritious food—food that is as close to its natural form as possible.
• Have regular family meals. Knowing dinner is served at approximately the same time every night and that the entire family will be sitting down together is comforting and enhances appetite.
• Cook more meals at home. Eating home cooked meals is healthier for the whole family. It sets a great example for kids about the importance of food. Restaurant and takeout meals tend to have a lot more unhealthy fat, sugar, and salt so cooking at home can have a huge impact on a child’s health.
• Get kids involved. Children enjoy helping adults to shop for groceries, selecting what goes in their lunch box, and preparing dinner. It's also a chance to teach them about the nutritional values of different foods, and for older children how to read food labels.
• Make a variety of healthy snacks available instead of empty calorie snacks. Keep plenty of fruit, vegetables, whole grain snacks, and healthy beverages (water, milk, pure fruit juice) around and easily accessible so kids become used to reaching for healthy snacks instead of empty calorie snacks like soda, chips, or cookies.