Posted May 3, 2010
Two Northeast Ohio sisters are trying to bring a colorful new nutrition education program to preschool and school-age children.
Registered nurse Kris Rosenfeld of Akron and school counselor Kelly Hickey of Cleveland Heights developed and began marketing the Eat a Rainbow Make Your Body Smile program through their startup company, Soof-Soof LLC.
The program integrates nutrition and health education while teaching children to take care of their bodies and the planet.
“The model that we came up with is designed to be a self-monitored approach to good nutrition,” Rosenfeld said. “The approach is a simple, flexible and affordable teaching model that tries to nurture a healthy self while cultivating a greater sense of environmental awareness.”
Rosenfeld said the typical way of trying to teach young children to eat healthy by following the food pyramid and reading food labels doesn’t seem to be working.
The sisters got the idea for their initiative after developing a modified “eating rainbow” to use with their own children.
The two challenged their children to eat at least five servings a day from their modified food rainbow: red, yellow, orange, green and pur plish-blue.
“Just knowing the five colors of the tweaked rainbow provided a very basic, visible cue that was very easily associated with fruits and vegetables,” Rosenfeld said.
PSI: Partners for Success and Innovation recently contracted with Soof-Soof to begin offering the Eat a Rainbow Make Your Body Smile program to area schools.
PSI is a Twinsburg-based company that provides educational support and health services to 465 schools throughout Ohio.
“PSI feels strongly about the need for nutrition education as part of preparing today’s students for a healthy future and this program supports the initiative,” said Karen McKelvey, PSI’s coordinator of prevention/intervention services and special projects.
Along with an educational curriculum, the sisters recently added healthy children’s cooking classes to the program’s options. The two developed their own kid-friendly recipes using healthy items, such as fruits, vegetables and grains.
Each eight-week session focuses on food safety and preparation, as well as hands-on opportunities to cook healthy foods that go along with the eating rainbow.
The hope is that kids will be better eaters if they play a role in preparing the food.
“Nothing ever included getting them in the kitchen,” Rosenfeld said. “I love seeing how excited they are when they talk about what they made and what they tried.”
On a recent afternoon, Rosenfeld led an after-school cooking class with about a dozen children ages 4 to 8 at Old Trail School in Bath Township.
Children made red foods — Awesome Homemade Applesauce and Whole Grain Apple Waffles. (An accompanying box has the recipes.)
Six-year-old Joella Nagy concentrated carefully as Rosenfeld helped her chop an apple to make the applesauce.
Joella’s favorite part of the class?
“We get to eat the food after we make it,” she said with a grin.
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or chpowell@thebeaconjournal.com. p> —–
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