“Daycare provider recognized for healthy food choices” |
| Daycare provider recognized for healthy food choices Posted: 03 Feb 2011 03:03 PM PST Breakfast Thursday at Shelly Monson's house was toast, a banana and milk. For lunch, she serves homemade chicken nuggets, chicken tacos or turkey burgers. Every meal has fruits or vegetables. This is the kind of foods she serves the children in her home-based day care in north Bismarck. She was recognized by Bismarck Burleigh Public Health for meeting the criteria of the Move More, Eat Better program, which encourages healthy foods, keeping children active and limiting television time. "The kids hate the canned fruit cocktail, peaches and pears," she said. She focuses on less processed foods, and more organic foods. The infants she cares for are fed breast milk that their mothers provide, and Monson is flexible with mothers coming to breast feed their infants. As for keeping the children active, she has a large, fenced back yard for the children to play in, and when the weather is nice, they go for walks in the neighborhood. "We're often mistaken for being from the school nearby," she said. When the weather isn't so nice, she has kid-friendly exercise videos for them to do, such as walking or dancing; books that encourage children to move. They also go on field trips to the zoo or play at a nearby park, she said. Every Friday is pajama day, and they get to watch a movie. If it's a long movie, she has the children watch half of it in the morning and half of it at night. She also offers educational activities for the young children to learn things like how to write letters from the alphabet or the significance of holidays. This week, they made groundhogs in honor of Groundhog Day with construction paper and scissors, which develop fine motor skills. Churches and childcare providers receive recognition when they meet 15 guidelines that focus on healthy food, being active and supporting breast feeding mothers. "Most individuals want to make healthy choices, but in our busy world, often, inactivity and poor food choices are the only choice," said Wanda Agnew, the administrator of the Move More, Eat Smarter program. Monson doesn't know what the children eat at home, but she knows for at least five days a week they are getting healthy meals. She also finds that more parents are wanting to find child care that can support efforts they make at home, she said. For more information about the program, call 355-1555 or visit www.bismarck.org/publichealth or the Activate Bismarck-Mandan website at www.gobismarckmandan.org. (Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@bismarcktribune.com.) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Content Keyword RSS To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment