HEY!

Are you feeling a little overwhelmed with all your homework and tests coming up? Check out these superfoods to help you relieve some of that stress. WAIT. What's a superfood? Superfoods are foods and snacks that are high in nutrients and you need nutrients for a balanced and healthy diet. Superfoods are great because they target the body in so many ways. Check out the list below to see our suggestions of some superfood snacks and foods to help you de-stress on those study breaks.

1. DARK CHOCOLATE

          We're going to start this list off with a fun one. Who doesn't love chocolate? Turns out a moderate portion (let's just say a few bites) is actually healthy for you. When you're super stressed out, your body releases hormones like cortisol and catecholamines and pure dark chocolate (again, in moderation) can help to reduce this production! They've even got antioxidants which are good for the body too.

2. AVOCADOS

This is a yummy- nutrient packed food that's...

Did you know that according to old Food and Drug Administration Health and Nutrition Guidelines, Poptarts could have been considered healthy while avocados couldn’t? WHAT?!  In case you’ve forgotten, Poptarts are the rectangular shaped, sugar frosted, food item filled with strawberry filling or other various flavors. At 200 calories per Poptart and 16 grams of sugar, it’s a wonder something like this could ever be considered healthy. I’m sure you’re wondering how this is the case. Well according to the FDA, foods have to meet specific standards. These range but often focus per subgroup instead of looking at all of the components of a food item. In the case of avocados, we’re looking at fats. The FDA analyzed total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and other nutrients. Below 3 grams of fat were considered a healthy option, which ruled out avocados but not technically Poptarts.

What is fat?

Fat is one of the main macronutrients in your diet. You NEED fat to survive. You do not need fat in e...

So it’s the beginning of the New Year and you’ve had the big [food] conversation with your parents. Now you want to jump-start your diet and nutrition goals for the New Year and set the tone right! But where do you start?!  For beginners it’s not uncommon to be unsure where to begin.

Rest assured, you’re not alone! Being committed to a healthy lifestyle takes a transition time and hard work! Avoiding all those junk foods and starting a stricter eating regimen is NOT EASY. You need to develop a realistic plan! The best way to start eating for a healthy lifestyle is by making one or two small changes at a time to your usual eating habits. Give yourself [and family] some time and don't expect to change what you eat overnight.  Keep in mind that new behaviors take up to a month to become habit. Once your first round of goals become habits, you can start to introduce new goals into your efforts.  

You want to start to get in the habit of making SMART goals.  Setting attainable goals...

Everyone struggles on where and how to start to eat healthy! Especially at a young age where most of the food that is given to you is bought and/or given to you by your parents. It’s hard to eat healthy when you’re not the gatekeeper of the “good” and “bad” food that enters your home. However, there are some ways to start changing the culture in your home. Here are a few tactics and tips to help you and (quite possibly) everyone else in your house to start eating healthy:

1. Accompany the person you go grocery shopping with. This is start to help influence the decision making where it happens with the person who makes the decisions on what everyone eats. Start to introduce fruit and veggies instead of candies and cakes.

2. Ask your parents to teach you how to cook. If you don’t know, cooking is an essential to eating healthy and, more importantly, a great life-skill a maturing adult. Preparing healthy meals will help save you from future health problems, help you grow stronger, and actua...

ATLANTA - The health habits kids form early on in childhood can shape who they become, and what they do, as adults. Yet a recent study by the American Heart Association shows many U-S children are coming up short when it comes to their heart health.

The Heart Association recommends a kids get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day -- but only half of school age children and less than 10 percent of older teens get enough exercise. And it could be just one habit undermining their heart-healthy as adults.

     "We often don't think about heart health until something bad happens,” says pediatric cardiologist Dr. Dennis Kim of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. 

Kim says when we do think about things like heart attacks and stroke, we don’t think about youngsters.

     “We think about other adults we know, other family members we know, other relatives,” he says. “We don't think about our kids."

But Dr. Kim say...

Did you know broccoli is a superfood? Superfoods are nutrient rich foods that pack a big punch! Broccoli is full of vitamin A, B1 & B6, C, E, iron, calcium, antixoidants.... You can just keep listing!