This Week's Healthy SC Challenge Tips

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.

Healthy Tips

Nutrition
To lose weight, you must eat fewer calories than your body uses. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to eat less food. You can create lower-calorie versions of some of your favorite dishes by substituting low-calorie fruits and vegetables in place of higher-calorie ingredients. The water and fiber in fruits and vegetables will add volume to your dishes, so you can eat the same amount of food with fewer calories. Most fruits and vegetables are naturally low in fat and calories and are filling. Here are some simple ways to cut calories and eat fruits and vegetables throughout your day:

Start the Day Right with breakfast! Substitute some spinach, onions, or mushrooms for one of the eggs or half of the cheese in your morning omelet. The vegetables will add volume and flavor to the dish with fewer calories than the egg or cheese. Cut back on the amount of cereal in your bowl to make room for some cut-up bananas, peaches, or strawberries. You can still eat a full bowl, but with fewer calories.

Lighten Up Your Lunch! Substitute vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, or onions for two ounces of the cheese and two ounces of the meat in your sandwich, wrap or burrito. The new version will fill you up with fewer calories than the original. Add a cup of chopped vegetables, such as broccoli, carrots, beans, or red peppers, in place of two ounces of the meat or one cup of noodles in your favorite broth-based soup. The vegetables will help fill you up, so you won't miss those extra calories.

For dinner add one cup of chopped vegetables such as broccoli, tomatoes, squash, onions, or peppers, while removing one cup of the rice or pasta in your favorite dish. The dish with the vegetables will be just as satisfying but have fewer calories than the same amount of the original version. Take a good look at your dinner plate. Vegetables, fruit, and whole grains should take up the largest portion of your plate. If they do not, replace some of the meat, cheese, white pasta, or rice with steamed broccoli, asparagus, greens, or another favorite vegetable. This will reduce the total calories in your meal without reducing the amount of food you eat. BUT remember to use a normal- or small-size plate - not a platter. The total number of calories that you eat counts, even if a good portion of them come from fruits and vegetables.
-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Physical Activity
If you think young children spend their summers running around and keeping trim, think again. A new study finds that kindergartners and first-graders put on more weight during summer vacations than during the school year. Children are eating more and exercising less when they are out of the classroom routine, suggests the study in the American Journal of Public Health. The extra pounds are not normal growth spurts. During the summer, children gain weight at twice the rate as during the school year, pushing some kids into obesity and making overweight children even heavier.

Exercise is an important part of keeping adolescents healthy. Encouraging healthy lifestyles in children and adolescents is important for when they grow older. Lifestyles learned in childhood are more likely to stay with the child into adulthood. Changes in lifestyle are harder to make the older the person becomes. The best way to promote healthy lifestyles is for the whole family to become involved.

A daily exercise program can provide a way to share an activity with family and friends, while helping establish good heart-healthy habits. The following exercise guidelines for adolescents can help you and your adolescent plan activities:

*Children and adolescents need at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity on most days for maintenance of good health and fitness and for healthy weight during growth.
*Parents are encouraged to limit children's screen time (TV, video, and computers) to less than two hours daily and replace the sedentary activities with activities that require more movement.
-Medical University of South Carolina

Tobacco
Although smokers must make their own decisions to quit, several common factors often serve as motivators for quitting.

-Health Benefits: Improved health seems to be the primary motivator for quitting. Many of the adverse health effects of smoking can be greatly reduced or even reversed through cessation. Immediate benefits of quitting include a decrease in blood pressure, a lowered pulse rate, an increased oxygen level in the blood, and a decreased blood carbon monoxide level. Also, the ability to smell and taste is enhanced. After two weeks of abstinence, circulation to the extremities improves, blood pressure remains lower, and lung function improves. After just a few weeks to a month, cough, sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath all decrease, although cough may actually worsen right after quitting. Further, ex-smokers are less likely than current smokers to have colds, develop gum disease, experience fertility problems (in both males and females), or experience erectile dysfunction.

-Personal Requests: Many smokers receive personal requests to quit from family members, friends, and physicians who are concerned about the smoker's health and/or are bothered by their habit. Although one request may not be enough motivation, each subsequent request may increase a smoker's probability of quitting.

-Economic Aspects: Although health is usually the main motivator for quitting, the economic cost and burden of the habit may also influence some smokers' decisions. Depending on the individual, smoking can be quite expensive -- costing as much as $70.00-80.00 per week. Although the main public health objective of raising the price of cigarettes is to deter adolescents from smoking, increasing cigarette prices does seem to increase smoking cessation. The economic benefits of quitting may be especially important for the 30% of smokers who have incomes below the national poverty level. The cost of cigarettes isn't the only economic cost of smoking. Smokers' health care expenses are as much as 21% higher than those of nonsmokers. It is estimated that smoking costs the U.S. $158 billion each year in productivity losses and excess medical expenditures.
- The American Council on Science and Health