Use the We Can! Energize Our Families: Parent Program - A Leader's Guide

This guide provides a four lesson program (90 minutes per lesson) with dynamic activities and practical, reproducible handouts with tips for parents to help their families maintain a healthy weight.  We learned from leaders of the original six session curriculum that parents so enjoyed the program once they came to the classes, they wanted to stay longer. So this four lesson option provides community leaders with more information during each session on the core concept of energy balance , the long term balance between energy in (calories from food) and energy out (calories burned through activity).

The lessons are fun and hands-on, with a focus on helping participants learn essential skills that can help their families increase access to and availability of healthy foods, make healthful food choices, become more physically active, and reduce recreational screen time. During each lesson, participants are encouraged to try new nutrition and physical activity tips with their families, and they are given the opportunity to share their families' experiences with the group. They also discuss ways to modify recipes to make favorite, common meals lower in fat and sugar based on the “ingredient substitution” concepts they learned.

Don’t miss pages 42-44 in session 2 on portion distortion. Participants scoop out different volumes of snack foods and compare their chosen “portion” with the “serving size” on the package. They then calculate how much more (or less) fat and calories are contained in their “portion” relative to the standardized “serving.”

Also check out page 73 in session 4: less sit, more fit. This page explains the importance of meal time being family time. Did you know that the families who eat together tend to eat more nutritious meals than families who eat separately?

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Order the We Can! Energize Our Families: A Family Guide

This workbook contains all of the handouts and activity sheets used during the We Can! Parent Program’s four sessions. The Family Guide also can be used at home to help parents and caregivers talk to their families about eating healthy and being physically active, plan healthier meals, create grocery lists, save money while eating healthily, and track their family’s physical activity and screen time. Community planners using the Parent Program Leader’s Guide may wish to order copies of the Family Guide to provide to program participants.

Take a look at page 13’s Quick as a Flash Healthier Snacks for no-time-needed 100 or fewer calorie snack ideas.

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Tune Into a We Can! Web Cast

The Acting Surgeon General Rear Admiral Steven Galson joins public health leaders from county, city, and state levels to share how they developed innovative local programs based on themes and materials from We Can!  Participants will also speak about the challenges and lessons learned via Web cast presented by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and scheduled for Thursday, February 21, 2008, from 3:00 - 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Questions and answers to follow.

Registration is f|r|e|e and starts on February 7 at http://webcasts.naccho.org. After registering, you will receive the access link for watching the session over Internet broadband streaming video and the phone number for audio only situations. For agenda, speakers, and more information, visit: http://www.naccho.org/topics/HPDP/mch/emch/archived/07-08/NACCHOEMCHNOVEMBER2007.cfm

View the archive on the Web cast section of the NACCHO Web site at http://webcasts.naccho.org, starting March 1.

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