Tell Teachers about New Classroom Programs
Make teaching your children about healthy eating easier! How? By telling your children's teachers about our BRAND-NEW classroom programs that teach children to make nutritious choices at home and beyond. Nationally tested, these exciting programs support USDA's MyPyramid and are available FREE when teachers enroll at www.NutritionExplorations.org

• Second-graders are transported back to the time of medieval castles and dragons where they learn nutrition basics with the help of Little D the Dragon and the Royal Food Family in Little D's Nutrition Expedition.
• Fourth-graders enjoy arm-chair travel with Arianna Bones and Marcus Muscleman as they solve nutrition mysteries and travel to exotic locations like Antarctica in Arianna's Nutrition Expedition.

Questions? E-mail us.

Online Games for Home and the Classroom
Let your little gamers try our fun, educational and age appropriate games featuring characters from our new, Nutrition Expeditions classroom programs. From Little D's Picnic Adventure, where kids scour the countryside for nutritious foods to Arianna's Nutrition Mixer where a mixer board is used to create musical patterns and melodies, these games review nutrition basics. Be sure to check them out ...and tell your children's teachers about them too!

Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act Helps Kids Eat Healthier
This new legislation recently signed by President Bush moves schools another step forward in creating healthy nutrition environments. The legislation requires schools to have wellness policies, including nutrition guidelines, for all food offered in schools by the 2006-2007 school year. Schools are no longer compelled to offer whole milk, and in support of the requirement to offer milk in a variety of fat contents, they will need to offer at least two fat levels. Though not binding, the law encourages schools to build consumption by adding flavors and lactose-free milk. And, the new law prohibits soft drink companies from forbidding schools to sell milk on school grounds in vending machines or at school events.

Find in-depth information about the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004.

Parents and Schools Can Help Reverse Rise in Childhood Obesity
A new report issued by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies encourages families and schools, along with industry and communities, to take action and reverse the rapid rise in childhood obesity.

• Parents are called upon to provide healthful foods at home and encourage physical activity by limiting children's recreational TV, videogame, and computer time to no more than 2 hours a day.
• Schools are called upon to implement standards for all foods and beverages served on school grounds, including those from vending machines. It also recommends that schools expand opportunities for children to engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day.

Share this report with your children's school and ask about changes being made to promote healthful food choices. Read more about "Preventing Obesity: Health in the Balance."