Healthy Kids Toolkits Put Childhood Obesity Month into Practice

If you're a parent who's busily helping your children start a new school year, September is the time to launch not only successful study habits, but healthy eating and activity routines that can help them avoid health problems.

Obesity and overweight are rampant and linked to many health problems, including cancer. Excess weight puts us all, even kids, at risk for seven common weight-related cancers later in life.

That's why AICR and SuperKids Nutrition (SKN) have partnered to create a free series of six online toolkits that bring healthy, fun and kid-approved recipes, educational games and activities you and your children can use now and in the coming months.

These colorful toolkits are part of our campaign, Healthy Kids Today – Prevent Cancer Tomorrow and are downloadable – and they're free!

AICR estimates that preventing obesity would prevent well over 100,000 cases of cancer every year in the U.S. alone. AICR’s expert report and updates identify obesity as a major cause of seven of the most common cancers in U.S., including colorectal, esophageal, pancreatic, kidney, gallbladder, endometrial and post-menopausal breast cancers.

"AICR provides the scientific evidence,” says AICR’s Alice Bender, MS, RD, ”and our campaign featuring SuperKids Nutrition helps us turn that evidence into fun, engaging and easy-to-use tools. So parents, teachers and kids can use them together to instill the kind of life-long habits that keep kids healthy.”

Get Free Yummy Recipes and Fun Games

All Healthy Kids Today materials feature the Super Crew kids, a multicultural group of kids who get powers from different healthy foods, and who are featured on more than 3,000 school websites across the nation.

The toolkits show families how to get more colorful plant foods into every meal, slip more activity into the day, make healthy substitutes for unhealthy foods, shop smarter for groceries and much more.

“The habits kids learn at home are the ones they take with them into their adulthood,” said Melissa Halas-Liang, MA, RD, CDE, founder of SuperKids Nutrition. “By engaging kids with fun activities and delicious recipes, we can help spare the kids of today hundreds of thousands of cancer cases tomorrow.”

Parents and kids can sign a pledge to dedicate themselves to healthier habits and complete one free toolkit per month. The toolkits include a range of easy tips to help combat childhood obesity, including:

• Toolkit 1: Eat Powerful Plant Foods
  Tracking your food colors with the Super Crew Colorful Food Tracker will help you eat at least 4 colors a day faster than you think.
• Toolkit 2: Go With Whole Grains
  We’ve got the whole deal – eating more than half your grains as whole grains keeps you healthy and lowers cancer risks. Our toolkit shows you how.
• Toolkit 3: Healthy Protein
  Making a delicious meal using plant-based protein is easy, filling and healthy.
• Toolkit 4: Get Active
  Dance or play your way to being active and growing strong with at least 60 minutes of exercise each day.
• Toolkit 5: Healthy Grocery Shopping
  Family pizza night? Forget delivery, have fun making your own – it’s a healthy family activity.
• Toolkit 6: Taste a Rainbow of Colors
  Taste the rainbow with your kids! Make this colorful slaw with your kids.