Take the RealAge Healthy Kids Test….

….and find out if your Good Kids have Bad Habits!

Dr. Jennifer Trachtenberg authored Good Kids Bad Habits to help families develop life-long healthy habits. It is a well-rounded primer for learning about and implementing smart choices regarding diet and exercise. And, though one can’t judge a book by it’s cover, this book’s cover is cleverly designed and would attract my attention in the bookstore.

As stated in the intro, “Experts predict [this will] be the first generation of children to have a lower life expectancy than their parents.” After recently reading Fast Food Nation and watching "Super Size Me," I’m not surprised.

What I found helpful in Good Kids Bad Habits:

• Recommended Daily Food Group Amounts for children ages 2-18
• “How to Keep Your Family’s Diet Colorful” chart (involve your kids in keeping track of what your family eats)
• The list of kid-safe internet search engines (inappropriate sites are filtered out of the results)
• “Intellectual Milestones” chart (most charts of this nature focus on the physical aspects of development so this one was helpful)

And I laughed when I read the following regarding children wanting to hear the same song over and over again: “Exasperating to parents? Yes. Important for a child’s cognitive development? Absolutely! So take a deep breath and get ready to sing ‘Wheels on the Bus’ for the fifteenth time.” We sing this particular song so often I had to look up more verses on the internet yesterday!  (There are only so many verses I can spontaneously create when feeding two toddlers!)

I recommend Good Kids Bad Habits if you are looking for an entry-level introduction to instilling healthy habits in your children. For me, though, most of the information in this book was a review of concepts and facts I’ve already learned elsewhere. If you are looking for more detailed books on healthy eating for young children, check out Super Baby Food (a lot of which applies to adults as well) and for families: Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit by Adelle Davis.

If you would like a complimentary copy of Good Kids Bad Habits to review on your own blog, email Felicia Sullivan .... Felicia.Sullivan AT harpercollins DOT com …. and tell her I sent you!

Comments

[kailani]

I received a free copy from her, too. I just need to find the time to read it! Sounds like a great book!

[Iliyana Davidova]

Hi will like to take the test