Family Talk MARCH 2016

Barbara Ames—Family & Consumer Science Agent www.wildcatdistrict.ksu.edu

facebook.com/wildcat.extension.district

Did you know that chronic disease is responsible for more than 70% of Kansas health care costs? Did you know that healthy lifestyle choices like those promoted through K-State’s Walk Kan-sas Health Initiative can help protect your family against those chronic diseases?

According to the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease: If Americans were to stop smoking, exercise regularly, and eat well, they could prevent up to 80% of heart disease and stroke, 80% of type 2 diabetes and 40% of cancers. Walk Kansas is a team-based pro-gram designed to inspire participants to lead a

healthier life by being more active, making better nutrition choices, and learning positive ways to deal with stress.

In Walk Kansas, teams of six log minutes of activity for eight weeks. Each team selects one of three ac-tivity challenges they will collec-tively work towards. In addition,

participants report the amount of fruits/vegetables they eat, and healthy eating tips and recipes are available through the weekly newsletter and on the Walk Kansas website.

Walk Kansas will be April 3 – May 28. For in-formation go to www.walkkansas.org , call your local Wildcat District Extension Office, or, check our website at www.wildcatdistrict.ksu.edu.

Walk Kansas Promotes Health and Well-being for Families

Tips for Feeding ‘Picky’ Young Eaters What can you do if your child or grandchild often says “no” to eating certain foods? A ‘new’ food may be rejected by your child 10 or more times before he decides it’s okay.

1. Try introducing the new food along with a familiar food, possibly even mixing the two foods together. For example, you might serve a new hot cereal topped with banana slices. Also, try preparing the new food in different ways. With broccoli, for example, you could offer it raw dipped in peanut butter one day, and offer it again later in the week cooked in a favorite cas-serole.

2. Offer meals and snacks that include at least one food that your child typically will eat. Let your child watch you eat, too. Suggest that she try a food, but don’t insist on it. Your

child may not even want to taste the foods you serve, and that’s okay. However, if she asks for a food that you’re not serving, assure her that she can choose from any foods on the table and that she’ll be able to eat again in a few hours. To help ensure that the dinner table doesn’t be-come a battle of the wills, don’t promise a des-sert or some other reward in exchange for eating any foods served.

3. Get kids to “help” you. Your child will be more likely to try a new food if he or she is in-volved in growing it, looking for it at the mar-ket, or preparing it in the kitchen.

Source: Nourishing The Next Generation – Feb/Mar 2016 https://www.ksre.k-state.edu/humannutrition/newsletters/

nourishing-the-next-generation/nourishing-documents/NN2016FebMarch.pdf

It is the policy of Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Sta�on and Coopera�ve Extension Service that all persons shall have opportunity and access to its educa�onal programs, services, ac�vi�es, and materials without regard to race, color, religion, na�onal origin, sex, age, or disability. Kansas State University is an equal opportunity organiza�on.

Family Talk—March 2016

Family Fun Ideas — Word Play

One of the most valuable things you can do for your children is introduce them to a variety of words, both when

you talk with them and when you read to (and later, with) them. And word play can be exactly what it’s called: play!

With our babies, we often talk rhyming non-sense: oochie, scoochie, moochie and itsy bit-sy. Toddlers’ books frequently introduce allit-eration: “Alligators always answer ‘Ah!’ ” and “Big brown bears bicycle by bandstands.” Many word games for preschool and older kids call for alliteration, and you can make up your own to keep everyone off screens and talking to each other when you’re in a waiting room or stuck in traffic. And there’s absolutely no rea-son that sentences must make sense!

Here are a few examples of how to play, with each of you creating one sentence, or adding to a sentence started by the previous player:

• Start almost every word with the same sound: “Crazy cats carry canoes. . .”

• Create sentences with alliteration based on each family member’s name: “Janie jumps and jiggles in June” or “Mom makes mudpies mid-morning.”

• Make a sentence that starts with the sound that ends the last word in the previous sentence: “Crazy elephants dance the tango” leads to “Only dogs dig

For readers, of course, there are crossword puz-zles—those you find in the newspaper, in puzzle books and on websites. Or both adults and kids can create their own puzzles; if you’d like templates and tips, do an online search with a phrase such as “crossword puzzle templates.” The ultimate word play is Scrabble, and if kids are young, consider var-ying the rules to suit your goals: for example, allow the use of dictionaries to encourage players to cover the entire board rather than filling in the center with two-letter words.

Reprinted with permission from Parenting Press News for Par-ents, copyright © 2016. For a complimentary subscription, see

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Focus on Each Other at the Table

Talk about fun and happy things at mealtime. Turn off the television. Take phone calls later. Try to make eating

meals a stress-free time.