Website Calculates Snacks To Help Kids Make Healthy Choices

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Also Included In: Nutrition / Diet;  Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Article Date: 15 Feb 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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Before letting your kids go to the movies or play video games, you probably check the rating to make sure it's appropriate for them. So why not do the same thing for the snacks they eat? It's estimated that 1 of every 3 children is now overweight in this country* and some experts say snacking on the wrong types of food is a big part of the problem. Now, making better snack choices is as easy as checking its rating.

Like most teens, 14 year old Danny Gwirtz has a hearty appetite, but he didn't always make healthy choices when it came time to eat.

"I always used to ask for unhealthy snacks instead of healthier ones," says Danny.

Today, Danny knows better. He's lost 20 pounds and is now testing out an innovative new website to help him keep it off. Danny and his mom go to http://www.snackwise.org where an online calculator rates their snack foods. By simply typing in information from the label, snacks fall into three categories: red - choose rarely, yellow - choose occasionally, and green - the best choice.

"I don't always know just by looking, and it's kind of helpful to get on the computer and see 'wow, that's not really a good choice after all,'" says Barb Gwirtz, Danny's mom.

A team at Nationwide Children's Hospital developed the Snackwise system because not all snacks are created equal. For example, 3 similar bags of chips can each fall into a different category. But how would you know? Experts say it's not always about just counting fat and calories.

"The best choices that you would find would be things that contain 10% or more of the daily value of things like calcium, iron, vitamin A and C," says Jan Ritter, Registered Dietician with Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Keeping track of all that information can be confusing, which is why http://www.snackwise.org was designed to do it for you. Dr. Robert Murray, Director of the Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition at Nationwide Children's Hospital says it's information some parents have gone too long without.

"Unfortunately, snack foods make up about a third of all calories that kids take in. For that reason, these are very important decisions that we're making without thinking about it," says Murray.

You can check out the free online calculator at http://www.snackwise.org. For a small subscription fee, you can also access a list of hundreds of color-coded snacks and create and save your own snack database.

*Childhood Obesity, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, retrieved January 2008 http://www.cdc.gov

Nationwide Children's Hospital

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