"Physical Activity and Nutrition for Health is a book and CD-ROM package that will help you promote fitness and nutrition among students and staff and garner support from parents and community members to enhance student success. Physical Activity and Nutrition for Health will help you plan and implement physical education and nutrition education programs that significantly improve health and support learning in other subject areas, such as health education, mathematics, and science. And it will help you change the attitudes and behaviors of children so they embrace a lifetime commitment to health and fitness while maintaining a healthy weight."--BOOK JACKET.

The second edition of Planet Health: An Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Teaching Middle School Nutrition and Physical Activity offers an innovative approach to teaching health education. You can use this proven, evidence-based curriculum to teach students about nutrition and physical activity while helping them build skills and competencies in language arts, math, science, social studies, and physical education. The curriculum is designed for use by teachers in core academic areas as well as in physical education and health. This new edition includes revised nutrition and physical activity information, ensuring that you're equipped with the most up-to-date science. The book also includes an all-new CD-ROM with plenty of reproducible worksheets, parent information and newsletters, school health resources, and other teacher resource materials. Like the popular first edition, Planet Health provides -35 complete, ready-to-use lesson plans and 31 microunits that promote healthy nutrition and activity; -materials and instructions to implement Power Down, a two-week campaign to reduce television and other media viewing time, which you can launch in the classroom or school-wide; and -FitCheck, a self-assessment tool to help students track and improve their activity levels. In addition, the book includes access to a Web site, which features a teacher training PowerPoint presentation, a Planet Heath FAQ, and more. Planet Health, Second Edition, encourages students to think holistically about how health behaviors are interrelated, and it offers a constructivist approach to teaching and learning. With this approach, you can build on your students' knowledge and experiences to create an active, inquiry-based, student-centered learning environment--one in which students learn best as they construct meaning for themselves. Developed by educators and scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health, Planet Health, Second Edition, is aligned with the Massachusetts Department of Education Curriculum Frameworks (learning standards) for health, language arts, math, science and technology, and history and social science, and it meets the standards in many other states. Every Planet Health lesson incorporates a range of language arts learning standards and engages students through discussion ideas for small or large groups in which they cooperatively learn and solve health-related issues. Active discussions are used to encourage higher-level thinking and cognition, and peer-group work fosters social development. This new edition of Planet Health is the perfect antidote to kids' inactivity, poor food choices, and high levels of screen-viewing time. Acquiring good habits regarding nutrition and physical activity in adolescence often carries over into adulthood. Help your students develop good habits now with Planet Health, Second Edition, and they'll have a better chance of growing into healthy adults.

"Team Nutrition USDA; Let's Move!"--Cover.

Children's health has made tremendous strides over the past century. In general, life expectancy has increased by more than thirty years since 1900 and much of this improvement is due to the reduction of infant and early childhood mortality. Given this trajectory toward a healthier childhood, we begin the 21st-century with a shocking developmentâ€"an epidemic of obesity in children and youth. The increased number of obese children throughout the U.S. during the past 25 years has led policymakers to rank it as one of the most critical public health threats of the 21st-century. Preventing Childhood Obesity provides a broad-based examination of the nature, extent, and consequences of obesity in U.S. children and youth, including the social, environmental, medical, and dietary factors responsible for its increased prevalence. The book also offers a prevention-oriented action plan that identifies the most promising array of short-term and longer-term interventions, as well as recommendations for the roles and responsibilities of numerous stakeholders in various sectors of society to reduce its future occurrence. Preventing Childhood Obesity explores the underlying causes of this serious health problem and the actions needed to initiate, support, and sustain the societal and lifestyle changes that can reverse the trend among our children and youth.

Physical inactivity is a key determinant of health across the lifespan. A lack of activity increases the risk of heart disease, colon and breast cancer, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, osteoporosis, anxiety and depression and others diseases. Emerging literature has suggested that in terms of mortality, the global population health burden of physical inactivity approaches that of cigarette smoking. The prevalence and substantial disease risk associated with physical inactivity has been described as a pandemic. The prevalence, health impact, and evidence of changeability all have resulted in calls for action to increase physical activity across the lifespan. In response to the need to find ways to make physical activity a health priority for youth, the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Physical Activity and Physical Education in the School Environment was formed. Its purpose was to review the current status of physical activity and physical education in the school environment, including before, during, and after school, and examine the influences of physical activity and physical education on the short and long term physical, cognitive and brain, and psychosocial health and development of children and adolescents. Educating the Student Body makes recommendations about approaches for strengthening and improving programs and policies for physical activity and physical education in the school environment. This report lays out a set of guiding principles to guide its work on these tasks. These included: recognizing the benefits of instilling life-long physical activity habits in children; the value of using systems thinking in improving physical activity and physical education in the school environment; the recognition of current disparities in opportunities and the need to achieve equity in physical activity and physical education; the importance of considering all types of school environments; the need to take into consideration the diversity of students as recommendations are developed. This report will be of interest to local and national policymakers, school officials, teachers, and the education community, researchers, professional organizations, and parents interested in physical activity, physical education, and health for school-aged children and adolescents.