WASHINGTON, DC —Parents and educators know only too well that the arrival of summertime can make it harder to keep kids moving more and eating well. Hot weather and less-structured schedules often mean more screen time, less physical activity, and fewer healthy food choices.

Keeping up healthy habits year round puts kids on track to become grown-ups with healthy habits, and that can help lower their risk for many common cancers and other chronic diseases later in life. That’s why the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) and SuperKids Nutrition™ have created an engaging and action-packed series of free toolkits to use with kids over the summer months.

The “Activate Your Summer Shield” program gets children in grades K-5 involved in learning fun nutrition facts, preparing healthy recipes and participating in entertaining activities from a series of downloadable toolkits that focus on six topics:

• Eat Powerful Plant Foods
• Go for Whole Grain
• Healthy Protein Muscle Builders
• Get Active
• Shop for Healthy Groceries
• Fruit and Veggie Cancer Fighters

“Whether you work at a summer camp, summer school, extension or day care program – or you’re a parent or caregiver at home – these six downloadable packets offer great ideas for getting kids to understand and get excited about eating healthy and being active,” said AICR’s Associate Director of Nutrition Programs Alice Bender, MS, RDN.

Kids can chart their weekly progress. Parents and educators can either choose specific activities to do and recipes to make, or run through the entire toolkit, depending on their group or family’s needs.

“Activate Your Summer Shield” is part of the AICR Healthy Kids program, which turns AICR’s expert advice about healthy everyday choices for lowering cancer risk into kid-friendly tools and information.

At AICR Healthy Kids you’ll find fun activities, recipes and information that will help kids develop lifelong healthy habits. You can also find our latest updates on research about children and health.