Healthy Heart Program Updates
In this Issue
The 2005 edition of the Dietary Guidelines is a very detailed report, and everyone is contemplating how to educate the consumer. This issue of Healthy Heart Beats focuses attention on the new guidelines and provides some information to use in your programming and for your own newsletters. It will be of interest to those who work with clients with limited resources to note that following these recommendations are not necessarily expensive. We will try to draw attention to specific areas in future issues of Health Heart Beats. These guidelines provide ample opportunity for nutrition education. As you read them, you may be struck by the research from the DASH diet and the DASH plus sodium diet. We have included more information on the DASH diet and the mounting evidence that it can lower risk for heart disease and stroke. Stay tuned for the USDA release of the new graphic that will illustrate these guidelines. Whether we see a change to the Food Guide Pyramid is a hot topic, but there are no previews for us to share!
Information also comes rapidly these days on how to prevent and reverse the obesity trend among children and youth. No single intervention or group can act alone to stop this epidemic of childhood overweight, but there are steps we can take to stem the tide and start reversing the trend. If we fail to do this, children born today will have a lower life span of 2 to 5 years! In future issues of Healthy Heart Beats, we will provide some resources and report on research in this area. Schools influence eating and exercise, and hopefully Colorado will strengthen the physical activity required in schools. Schools that offer intense physical education programs have shown positive effects on academic achievement. These include increased concentration; improved mathematics, reading, and writing test scores; and reduced disruptive behaviors, even when the physical education reduces the time for academics. The Spotlight this month is on the director of the Colorado Physical Activity and Nutrition Coalition (CO-PAN). Rachel Oys brings expertise and public policy direction as she leads the team.
Plan to attend this year's Lillian Fountain Smith Conference in Fort Collins on June 9 and 10, 2005, and learn first hand about Omega-3 fatty acids and their role in heart disease. There is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding in this area. Also, the pre-conference training workshop on StrongWomen is a golden opportunity to receive training that will allow you to teach this program as part of your health promotion/disease prevention classes. Register early as space will be limited. See further details in this newsletter, and access the web site.
In addition, you will see a myriad of nutrition education resources. More and more appear in our regular and electronic mail, and those seen to be accurate and useful will be passed on to you.
Jennifer Anderson, Ph.D., R.D.
Food and Nutrition Extension Specialist
Shirley Perryman, M.S., R.D.
Extension Specialist
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Updated Tuesday, September 25, 2007.
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