Healthy SC Challenge

The Healthy SC Challenge is the Sanford family's effort to get all South Carolinians to do just a little more to live a healthier lifestyle. The tips are designed to encourage individuals and communities to live healthier lifestyles in three categories - nutrition, exercise and help to quit smoking.

Nutrition
Wearing green for St. Patrick's Day? Why not make a meal to match? From broccoli and green beans to spinach and green peppers, count all the ways you can fill your plate with greens! Properly prepared, green veggies add color appeal to your meals. Cooked just until tender-crisp, they add flavor appeal. Besides that, dark-green veggies supply plenty of nutrients-vitamin C, folate, and vitamin K, to name a few. Today we know they also supply two key carotenoids-lutein and zeaxanthin-which may promote eye health. And plant substances in greens may lower your risk for heart disease and some cancers, too.

* Go green! Think beyond the iceberg! Vary your salad greens: use spinach, romaine, watercress, chicory, or escarole.
* Serve on a bed of greens. Arrange grilled or roasted fish, chicken, or meat atop tender-crisp green beans or wilted spinach.
* Get leafy. Tuck chopped fresh spinach and other greens into sandwiches, pita, and wraps-and in lasagna, risotto, pasta dishes and burritos.
* Nosh on green snacks: raw broccoli spears, asparagus spears, zucchini slices, or crisp snow peas.
-Source: 365 Days of Healthy Eating from the American Dietetic Association (Wiley 2004), Roberta Larson Duyff, MS, RD, FADA, CFCS

Physical Activity
For hundreds of years, the Irish have been stereotyped as beer-swilling, potato-eating louts, but in a 2005 survey, Ireland's obesity rate clocked in at 13 percent, less than half the rate of the reigning obesity champs, the U.S. of A. So maybe there's something to the Irish diet and lifestyle that we could learn from. In fact, there are a number of things the Irish are doing better than the Americans to keep off the pound- and one of them is walking.

Take a walk. This is where Ireland and most countries in the world really have it over America. They walk. Aside from our propensity for super-sizing our meals and processing our food with any number of bad-for-us ingredients, Americans are really losing the battle of the bulge because of our sedentary lifestyle. Walking for 30 to 60 minutes a day speeds up your metabolism, burns fat, and builds muscle. If you don't have time to walk for an hour, even adding short jaunts to the office or the grocery store to your daily routine can have massive health benefits and greatly contribute to weight loss.
-Joe Wilkes for www.beachbody.com

Smoking Cessation
If you're like most South Carolinians, you'll agree smoke-free dining just tastes better. Not only are smoke-free eating establishments healthier for you and your family, but they're easier on your clothes, hair and skin and allow your taste buds to savor all the delicious flavors you've come to expect when you're enjoying a meal out on the town. When it comes right down to it, 80 percent of diners are nonsmokers and even many smokers prefer not to smoke when they eat. Visit this link to find smoke free restaurants in your town: http://www.scdhec.gov/health/chcdp/tobacco/smokefree.htm.
-South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control