Kid Smart Food is a nonprofit started by three sisters, now in its sixth year.
Background: The rate of childhood obesity in children is over 20%, that is, one in five children is now obese. In real numbers, 13.7 million children are affected by obesity. Worse still, 57% of children will become obese by age 35. Half of that prevalence will occur during childhood. The economic costs are staggering and range from $140,000,000,000.00-$210,000,000,000.00 (billion) annually.
We believe that simple measures can have a profound impact: If we instill good eating habits early on, we can have a meaningful impact on obesity and, in return, the health of children and society.
We felt lucky to grow up with parents who set a healthy example, but we realized that not everyone has the same opportunities we had. We created this program to help teach kids life-long healthful habits to make a difference in our community.
We began with a simple premise: educate children about their health. We started teaching elementary students how to make simple healthy snacks at home to encourage good eating habits at an early age.
Often, although parents try to provide healthy food, sometimes after school snacks ended up being less than nutritious. Sometimes this is because parents are still at work and children have to prepare snacks for themselves and other times because parents are busy tending to other needs.
We have gathered and developed recipes that require ingredients that are available in most homes and are easy enough to be safely prepared by an elementary school child.
These recipes have been selected with an eye towards good protein content as well as fruit and vegetable and dairy content to make sure the children receive a good selection of the food groups.
We started doing presentations in our former elementary school district. After much positive response, we set out across the state. We grew to seven of the major cities in North Carolina. Further fueled by the excitement of the children as well as teachers, principals, and administrators, we ventured from North Carolina to Virginia, and Maryland.
We never cease to be amazed by the responses we get. The children are excited to learn; they want to share the information with their family and friends; they ask us to come back to teach new recipes and more cool science.
We have a simple presentation where we demonstrate how to make a simple healthy snack. We talk about the science of nutrition. We also provide the class with its own booklet of make-at-home recipes and a link to the website where they can find more information.
We have now taught over one thousand children in three different states and this year had the opportunity to teach children in China with the addition of our first international ambassador.
Along the way we have done a pilot project with H.O.P.E. (Helping Our People Eat) where we traveled to underserved areas and delivered Kid Smart Food snacks. We have also collaborated with Laura Kurella, a member of the Food Channel and part of the USA Today Network! We are also extremely grateful of our sponsor Publix Super Markets for their donations!
The presentation lasts about 20 minutes as the presenters will demonstrate how to safely and easily make the healthy snack while explaining the science behind the nutrition of each ingredient. At the end, the students will get to sample the snack themselves!
Please contact Halle at halle@kidsmartfood.org if you are interested in becoming a state or international ambassador, getting involved, or just have questions! We would love to hear from you! Also, be sure to check out our partner organization, Science At Home Kids, for great science experiment ideas for kids!
*We are a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization if you would like to contribute as well.
Sources:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1703860
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html