Nutritional advice for healthy families
Nutrition
Navigating Nutrition: 5 Ideas for Healthy, Easy School Lunches and Snacks at Home
By now, many parents and kids have accepted they will be taking part in distance or hybrid learning at least for the short-term. Having nutritious ready-made foods in the fridge will increase the amount of time (and focus and energy) students have for learning. Planning ahead can also alleviate some stress for parents. Here are […]
Turning Family Meals into Learning Time This Fall
When I became principal of a second- and third-grade elementary school, each grade had just 22 minutes – start to finish – for lunch. What was the result? Rushed eating. Food waste. Frequent friction between kids and lunch aides. General mayhem. Then, while traveling in Japan, I visited a school in which the students served […]
It’s a Great Time to Garden
Spring has sprung and we’re all at home, which makes it the perfect time to start your own home garden – in your yard or in containers. “We have a really great climate for growing vegetables in Southern California,” says Brie Wakeland, a master gardener and garden educator at The Garden School Foundation. The organization […]
Should Kids Eat Artificially Sweetened Foods?
January is a time when many of us are trying to curb our sugar intake, but are zero-calorie or non-nutritive sweeteners a good way to do this? A November report from the American Academy of Pediatrics noted that the number of foods containing these sweeteners has quadrupled in recent years, but that their impact on […]
Curbing Influencers’ Influence on Kids’ Eating
Once upon a time, adults worried about the sugary breakfast cereals advertised to kids on Saturday-morning cartoons. The times and the frontier have changed, with children as likely to tune in to YouTube or Instagram as Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel. The problem of media swaying children’s diets toward the unhealthy, however, remains the same. […]
The Food Chain for Picky Eaters
By Christina Elston Every mom and dad wants to have a kid who’s a good eater. “One of your major roles as a parent is to make sure your child is well nourished,” says Judy Hopkins, an occupational therapist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles specializing in children with feeding disorders. That’s why having a child […]
Start Your Kids on a Heart-Healthy Path
February is a great time to show your kids a little extra love by helping them take good care of their hearts. A paper published in December in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology noted that heart-healthy habits in adults are rooted in childhood and could be the key to preventing future heart […]
Share, Care and Give With Food
Aihui Ong knows the universal power of food to show that we care. Years ago, reeling from a divorce and burned out from a 12-year career as a financial software engineer, Ong embarked on a backpacking trip that took her to 20 countries over 12 months. One of her biggest takeaways from her adventures was […]
EasyLunchboxes: Packing Meals is now a Breeze for Families
With her company, EasyLunchboxes (easylunchboxes.com), L.A. mompreneur Kelly Lester helps take the headache out of school-lunch prep. Created out of Lester’s own need to prepare lunches quickly, these containers were designed to hold healthy, portion-controlled meals for kids on the go. “I love to eat and feed my family healthy food, but I don’t like […]
Doc Talk: Steering Clear of Health Hype
As director of pediatric otolaryngology and a professor of head and neck surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Nina Shapiro, M.D., has met plenty of misguided parents. They want the best for their families but have trouble sorting what’s healthy from what’s not. A case involving a 16-month-old baby with a […]
Four Ways to Eat Healthier Now
Fill your family up with healthier food by using these tips from pediatric clinical dietitian Amanda Haney, MS, RD, CNSC, of MemorialCare Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach. Get halfway there. If you’re not confident cooking at home (generally healthier than eating out), consider services such as Blue Apron that deliver pre-prepped ingredients that […]
Doc Talk: Screening for Childhood Obesity
Childhood obesity rates, which climbed for decades, seem finally to have leveled off among most groups of kids. Still, about a third of kids are overweight and nearly 20 percent are obese, leading a government panel of experts to recommend in June that all children ages 6 and up be screened for obesity by their […]
Looking Beyond The Supermarket Aisle For Your Baby’s First Foods
Next time you walk around your favorite supermarket, take a moment to study the food on the shelves. For the most part, it will reflect the tastes and preferences of the people who buy there. Dominating will be the most popular brands and the most popular types of food, the best sellers for that particular […]
Boost Your Kids’ Nutrition By Putting On a Fruity Face
In May, the American Academy of Pediatrics – which has long advocated fresh fruit over fruit juice for kids – recommended that children under age 1 drink no fruit juice at all, the Academy’s first updating of advice about juice since 2001. The Academy also recommended limiting fruit juice to four ounces a day for […]
Understanding Peanut Allergy Guidelines
In January 2017, the U.S. National Institutes of Health issued new guidelines about babies and peanuts. Parents were previously advised to avoid giving children foods containing peanuts until age 3 to keep them from developing peanut allergy, but are now encouraged in some cases to give peanut-containing foods as early as 4 months. Dr. Maria […]
Cooking Tips for Special Kids
Chef Darrell “DAS” Smith has been a dad for less than a year, but he already knows a thing or two about picky eaters. That’s because in October, he became director of food services at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services. The organization serves nearly 400 children with special needs related to learning differences, […]
Parenting & Eating Disorders in Kids: When Healthy Goes Too Far
You’ve heard medical experts extol the virtues of healthy eating. You’ve been told to keep your children away from sugar, salt and processed foods, and have started to focus on healthy eating and nutrition for yourself and your child. With all this attention to healthy eating, you’ve certainly helped safeguard your child’s health. Or have […]
5 Steps To a Balanced Breakfast Smoothie
It’s time to create a new breakfast staple with fun ideas for kids. Although breakfast is the most important meal of the day, a typical kid’s breakfast includes foods such as cereal, pancakes, bagels or waffles, which are high in processed grains. These breakfasts are easy to make, but don’t include the ideal nutrient balance your kids need to start their day. A balanced breakfast contains […]
5 Tips for Healthy Summer Camp Lunches
Camp time is here. You want your kids to be well nourished and enjoy their lunch, but kids often get bored with the food parents pack, and parents have a challenging time coming up with new lunch ideas. Kids enjoy camp lunches that have balance, variety and include surprise treats. The treats are small, but […]
Picnic Perfection: Tips for Healthy, Safe and Delicious Meals On-The-Go
Whether you are headed to the zoo, a park, an amusement park or the beach, day trips provide excellent opportunities to spend time together, create memories and explore the areas surrounding Los Angeles. These tips from our family fun magazine will keep you fed and maximize the fun. Bringing meals and snacks along for the […]
Ace Your Next Well-child Checkup
Before they turn 3, kids are supposed to have 10 well-child visits with a pediatrician (apart from those inevitable visits for childhood illnesses). These should offer a chance to address the many questions parents of young children face, but time with the pediatrician is often less than 15 minutes – hardly enough time to cover […]
Healthy Food Tips from Thyme Café & Market
Chef Maire Byrne, founder of Thyme Café & Market in Santa Monica (www.thymecafeandmarket.com), grew up in L.A. in a home with five brothers and sisters, so she’s no stranger to mixing food and family. Now the mom of two daughters, she was happy to share her favorite tips about healthy family fare. What is your […]
Strike a Balance To Keep Kids Hydrated
When Alan Nager, MD, Director of Emergency Medicine and Transport at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, commutes to work, he passes at least eight Starbucks and various other purveyors of caffeine along the way. “In summer, half the people there are adolescents,” he says. Nager, like many experts, says that drinks with caffeine, energy drinks, alcohol, […]
Healthy Eating For Family Travelers
Travel season is upon us, and a lot of Angelino families will escape the commotion of our city by driving up the coast, down to San Diego or east to the desert – or fly even farther afield. While traveling is no easy feat, having a solid eating plan for your trip can help you […]
5 Tips for Relaxed Real-Food Mornings and Evenings
It’s dark and a bit chilly in your bedroom, which gives your warm and cozy covers more power to pull you in. Then you feel a small finger tapping your shoulder and you hear, “Mommy?” With your eyes half open, you stumble into the kitchen to take breakfast orders. The frantic routine of preparing breakfast, […]
Tips For Skipping Packaged Foods
If we are what we eat, then most of the packaged foods on grocery store shelves will turn your family into a salt shaker. A government report published in April found that more than half of these foods – including more than 70 percent of pizza, pasta and meat dishes and 50 to 70 percent […]
Unique Health Program Appeals to Digital Kids
Milena Bice’s 5-year-old son Diego was at an L.A.-area grocery store with his grandmother recently, and she wasn’t sure whether the breakfast cereal he wanted was a healthy choice. “Read me the first three ingredients,” Diego said. When one of them was sugar, he told his grandma, “Oh, that’s a red-light food. You can put […]
Rethinking Pizza for Children’s Health
Move over sugary drinks, there is a new enemy in the war against childhood obesity. Pizza. Pizza is the second-largest contributor of calories to the diets of U.S. kids ages 2-19, according to a study in the February issue of Pediatrics, and study authors recommend making it a target in obesity-prevention and children’s health counseling. […]
Eat, Sleep, Move: Parenting For Good Health
Health is complicated, but simple basics can make a big difference. How and what we eat, how well we sleep and how much we move are important. Use these healthy parenting tips to help your family be well in 2015. Eat Forget gluten free, paleo and cutting carbs. Eating right means slowing down. “I would […]
How to Manage Your Child’s Peanut Allergy
Did you know that peanut allergy is the third most common food allergy for children in America? To learn more, I partnered with Ronald Ferdman, MD, physician in theDivision of Clinical Immunology and Allergy at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. I’ll explain how you can help manage your child’s peanut-free lifestyle during grocery shopping and at […]
Ways to help your child lose weight safely
How many fast-food restaurants have you driven through at 6 p.m. on a work night, with a hungry child screaming at you? Many of us have, and as parents we likely feel guilty. Childhood obesity is rapidly on the rise in this country. A recent study published in the Wall Street Journal sites the obesity […]
Unplug For Successful Family Dinners
By Randi Goodman, LMFT When I was a child, I remember family dinners as a time to be with the family without interruptions. When the phone rang, my mother would scream, “Nobody answer that.” As a mother myself, I find it difficult to hold a conversation with my children without them being attached to their […]
Navigate Your Child’s Soy Allergy
By Robert Giesler, BSN, RN, RNC-NIC, RRT, CPST, RN Remedies nurse blogger at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Allergies come from different sources such as dust, cats, soy, peanuts, etc. They are a major cause of illness in the U.S. Up to 50 million Americans, including millions of kids, have some type of allergy. Since allergies […]
Is Gluten-Free Good?
You’ve Seen the Labels, Now Get the Facts By Christina Elston Once upon a time, people who wanted to follow gluten-free diets (and there weren’t many of them) didn’t have many options. That’s not to say that they couldn’t find much to eat. There are many, many foods that don’t contain a trace of gluten […]