Healthy Kids: Help Them Eat Smart and Stay Active--for Life! [Hardcover]

Marilu Henner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2001

We all want our children to be fit and healthy, but the current invasion of fast food, sugary snacks, and oversize portions are creating an epidemic of overweight, inactive, and unhealthy kids. The powerful influences of the fast-food industry, omnipresent junk food advertising, and the vicious cycle of TV, computer games, and Internet addictions only make our children more susceptible to a sedentary lifestyle and a lifetime of bad habits and obesity. Now, health pioneer and dedicated mom Marilu Henner says it's time to say good-bye to sugarcoated cereals, artificially colored cheese puffs, oceans of sugary soft drinks, nutritionally deficient school lunches, and fastfood supermeals!As Marilu explains, parents who want the best for their children need to feed them fresh, whole foods to grow by. In Healthy Kids she shows you how to create a healthy, balanced lifestyle for your kids and how to make the transition from dairy-, fat-, sugar-, and chemical-laden foods to the vibrant, natural, nourishing foods we were all meant to eat.Healthy Kids offers a proven plan to help parents and kids alike learn to eat healthier and feel better. Inspiring and enjoyable to read, it features:More than 100 mouthwatering recipes your children will loveHelpful, creative suggestions on getting your child into the habit of exerciseScores of tips on transitioning from dead food to live foodA special For Kids Only section with fabulous food-based puzzles, games, and challengesAge-specific recommendations for what foods your children might likeTimesaving shopping lists and helpful food preparation chartsExpert advice from pediatricians, physical trainers, teachers, and expert nutritionists on all aspects of nourishing your familyAs Marilu says, Healthy Food = Healthy Children. And Healthy Kids provides the essential information on creating a lifetime of nutritional eating habits for your growing children.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Healthy Kids, actress Marilu Henner guides you to better health for your kids by emphasizing fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains, and avoiding sugar, white flour, red meat, chemicals, caffeine, large portions, heavily processed "dead foods," and dairy (cow's milk, she contends, contributes to colic, diarrhea, bed-wetting, allergies, ear infections, and other health problems). "Healthy food equals healthy kids," Henner writes.

Henner offers the large picture--how to adopt healthy eating habits yourself and instill them in your children--combined with helpful tips. Your challenges are different in the first years of your children's lives, she writes, when you are basically choosing their foods and modeling behavior you want them to follow, than later, when children are more independent and make more of their own food choices. Healthy Kids offers information and pointers for each stage with chapters on pregnancy, infancy, toddler, preschool, and each stage of school from elementary to college. Henner also promotes exercise, creative games, and health-oriented teaching games (which seem rather heavy-handed; for instance, having your kids put food pictures into the food pyramid). Her 100-plus "Kid-Friendly Recipes" should be a hit, though, with healthy versions of pancakes, muffins, smoothies, soups, veggies, sandwiches, pasta, fish, chicken, and, of course, desserts. --Joan Price

About the Author

Marilu Henner is well known for her roles in Taxi and Evening Shade and her participation in The Celebrity Apprentice. She is the author of two other New York Times bestselling books, Marilu Henner's Total Health Makeover and Healthy Life Kitchen. She lives in Los Angeles.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (July 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066211123
• ISBN-13: 978-0066211121
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,745,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finest Book for Improving Diet and Exercise for Your Kids!, August 1, 2001

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Healthy Kids: Help Them Eat Smart and Stay Active--for Life! (Hardcover)

Please read this book and take action to help save our children from the health crisis that threatens their entire lives!

While they are many excellent resources for adults on how to eat right, exercise, control weight, and avoid harmful substances to reduce the risk of disease or reverse the effects of disease already experienced, little is said about children. This publishing focus reflects a national obsession with helping adults while assuming kids will be all right. Not true!

We are in the midst of a terrible tragedy in terms of undermining children's health before they are even through their full physical development. Ms. Henner deserves a huge thanks for taking this subject on, and doing a fine job with it!

The data are clear. Children of five often have unhealthy cholesterol levels. Childhood obesity and many related diseases such as diabetes are on the rise. ADD and depression are soaring. Allergy-related problems are often chronic by age six. Many of these problems will stay the same or get worse in adult years. For example, those who are obese while young will usually be obese as adults. That increases the risk for many diseases, especially diabetes and heart problems. The causes relate to eating the wrong foods, too little exercise, and parents doing a poor job of offsetting social influences (like advertising to kids, vending machines for candy at school, and supersize meals at fast food restaurants) in these areas. If your kids are having a lot of ear infections, are tired all the time, are grumpy or hyper alternatively, have asthma, or are overweight, this book will probably help you make changes that will enable your child to improve.

If you want a quick overview of the problems and the solutions, Dr. Peter S. Waldstein's foreword captures the key points.

While many books on subjects like this rant about the problem but provide little guidance, Healthy Kids is a happy exception. There's lots of practical advice about what food to buy and prepare at home, what to do when eating out, how to improve the food at school, ways to increase exercise, and suggestions about getting rid of and avoiding toxins. The book contains over 100 healthy recipes for foods that kids like, that can substitute for traditional, unhealthy ways of preparing the same or similar foods.

I was particularly impressed by the detailed advice related to each age group through college. The book begins by pointing out that 85 percent of children today don't get enough breast milk for proper brain development. Human breast milk has six times the fatty acids critical for brain development that cow's milk has. And cow's milk can cause allergies for some that lead to respiratory and ear infections.

My only complaints about the book were that it did not take a look at how blood type affects different youngsters; usually ignored the differences between what girls and boys need; argued for separating and combining different foods without making a case for why that was a good idea; and did not have a section on drinking enough water.

The sections on why to avoid sugar, white flour, the wrong fats, hormones, caffeine, beef, dairy products, and other artificial chemicals were very well done. The related sections on how to avoid them were even better!

Ms. Henner is ready to be your success coach in this important area. As she points out, your child's pediatrition got almost no training in these areas and probably won't make the right suggestions relating to diet and exercise. Even if you have a pediatrition who does provide good advice on what to do, she or he won't know much about how to help make the changes.

After you finish this excellent book and place it where you make your grocery shopping lists, I suggest that you think about how you can improve your children's emotional health, too. How many hugs and kisses did they each get today? How many kind words did you share?

Let's put an end to unnecessary suffering by our children!

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I've been looking for..., September 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Healthy Kids: Help Them Eat Smart and Stay Active--for Life! (Hardcover)

Even though I am a vegetarian and eat very healthy, I have felt a little lost about how to pass on the importance of healthy food to my daughter. People are always asking me how will I handle certain situations when she is no longer a baby and I do not control everything that goes into her body. For example, how to handle McDonald's birthday parties or school snacks without making her feel like the odd one in the bunch. This book gives great advice on how to handle these situations in a positive manner as well as how to make healthy eating a lifestyle for the entire family. I also love the recipes and knowing that I can still bake homemade desserts for my family, just without all the processed sugar and dairy. I have already tried some of the recipes and they have been a hit so far. Thank you Marilu - every parent should read this book!

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A BOOK TO READ, USE AND CHERISH, August 2, 2001

By 

Rennie (Greece) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Healthy Kids: Help Them Eat Smart and Stay Active--for Life! (Hardcover)

This is a long needed and long expected book. For so many years we have been told that "kids do not grow up without meat" (meat meaning usually beaf). Now there is so much information about why we should not be eating meat, that it is unthinkable to be sticking to that old know-it-all statement. The truth is, the main problem with a meat-free diet, has always been how to make it attractive to the kids. Well, this book offers so many tasty, nutritious and inviting recipies that all toddlers will find food to their liking. Plus, with all the sound information Ms. Henner provides in her familiar style, all mums, caterers, nurseries, etc. will find encouragement to stay and help kids stay meat-free, active and healthy. Thank you Ms. Henner! A job well done!