It’s Time to Change It Up!

Posted on February 18, 2019 by Hollis Bass

We’re constantly bombarded with images of fast food, junk food, and processed food. Marketers know what they’re doing by getting these pictures into our subconscious minds. Well, let’s fight back! It’s time to Change It Up!

Our Change It Up theme features a gorgeous butterfly made up of real photos of fruit. Now, this is an image we want in our clients’ minds! The message is simple but impactful – transform your life with healthy food and regular physical activity. Go from a fast-food caterpillar to a healthy butterfly.

Our poster and banners come with the free Change It Up printable handout. One side provides general tips on changing up your diet (MyPlate, portion sizes, and fruits and vegetables) and every day activity. The other side offers more detailed suggestions for transforming your meals, snacks, and exercise routine.

How can you use the Change It Up materials in different settings? Glad you asked!

Display the banner or poster in the cafeteria, a hallway, or waiting room. (We also have a salad bar sign!) When people see the beautiful, colorful, fruit-filled butterfly every day, they’re bound to think more about healthy food.
Give out the stickers and bookmarks so people can take the picture and the message with them.
Set up a Change It Up table in the cafeteria or at a health fair. Engage visitors with questions: Are you more like the butterfly or the caterpillar? What changes can you make to transform yourself into the butterfly? Give away the Change It Up handout, stickers, and bookmarks.
Teach a Change It Up class. Depending on your audience, here are two lessons:
- Focus on how small shifts in eating and activity will make everyone feel transformed.
- Go with the caterpillar to butterfly theme. How does the image of the butterfly make you feel? How about the caterpillar? When you eat healthy food and are active, which one do you feel like? How can a healthy diet and regular exercise make you feel transformed?

Here is a handout called, 9 ways to make easy and healthy switches for a better diet and exercise plan: 9 Easy Healthy Switches Handout

MyPlate Meal Makeover Handout

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Stephanie Ronco

Check out this amazing MyPlate meal makeover! I originally kept this handout as an exclusive part of the soon-to-be-released My Plate activity book, but my resolve has crumbled and I can’t wait to share it with you today! If you like what you see, be sure to keep an eye out for the free printable MyPlate handout at the bottom of the post…

Meal Makeover: Use MyPlate to Rearrange This Plate of Fried Chicken

Revise Fried Chicken:

A typical plate filled with fried chicken and macaroni and cheese weighs in at over 850 calories! That’s way too huge for a single meal. Plus, the plate is full of solid fats and processed grains, with very few nutrients in sight. This is where MyPlate comes in handy. Use MyPlate to rebalance the plate and make the meal more nutritious!

Since filling half the plate with fruits and vegetables is key to MyPlate, start there, replacing half of the chicken and macaroni with steamed corn and green beans. Then keep protein to a quarter of the plate, choosing white meat to cut down on saturated fat. This leaves the dairy and grain groups, which are represented by the macaroni and cheese. Look at the new plate! It’s got only 333 calories, and it looks just as full as the other plate!

Dinner Meal Makeover Details:

Using MyPlate to make over this meal saves you 517 calories!

This new meal is far higher in nutrients, especially fiber, vitamins, and minerals. It’s also lower in empty calories than the first plate.

You could make this meal even better by replacing the refined grain macaroni with a whole grain pasta like whole wheat pasta or quinoa pasta. If you replaced the full-fat cheese with low-fat cheese, you’d take the improvements even further!

The green beans add 30% of your daily value (DV) of vitamin C and 20% of your DV of vitamin K.

The corn adds 17% of your DV of fiber and 21% of your DV of thiamin.

Like what you see? Here’s a free (and printable!) My Plate handout:

And don’t miss these other engaging MyPlate materials from the Nutrition Education Store!

MyPlate Coloring Book

MyPlate DVD

MyPlate Floor Sticker

Sneak Peek from the Member Site: Eat More Fruits and Vegetables

Posted on September 27, 2016 by Stephanie Ronco

Today I want to share one of my favorite articles from the member-exclusive October edition of the Communicating Food for Health Newsletter.

In this handout, Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD and Lisa Andrews, RD team up to offer fun ways to help your clients improve their eating patterns and eat more fruits and vegetables. Check it out!

Are you in a fruit and vegetable slump? It’s easy to get stuck eating the same things over and over. Green salad, tomatoes, carrots. Apples, bananas, grapes. Sound familiar? It may be time to mix things up!

Make your own salad bar. Buy at least two kinds of salad greens (baby spinach and romaine, for example) and an assortment of other raw veggies. If time is an issue, go with pre-washed, pre-cut items. Every night at dinner, bring out the assortment of greens and veggies and let everyone make their own salad.

Roast and grill. The pickiest of eaters become veggie-lovers when they try something like oven-roasted Brussels sprouts or grilled fresh asparagus. Roasting and grilling bring out flavors and textures that raw or steamed vegetables just don’t offer.

Embrace the exotic. While we usually recommend that you buy local produce that’s in season, there’s a world of produce out there (like cardoon!). Trying something more exotic once in awhile won’t hurt. Ask the produce manager where you shop to point you toward unique items. Stop by ethnic grocery stores to see what they offer. Where I live, there’s a huge grocery store that carries an endless array of fruits and vegetables from all over the world. Take a short “field trip” and bring home something new to try.

Find fancier frozen veggies. If your freezer is full of peas, carrots, and corn, branch out to other vegetables! Again, this is where an ethnic grocery store comes in handy. They might have things you don’t usually serve. Some specialty stores, like Trader Joe’s, have items like frozen grilled cauliflower. Give these new tastes a try!

Get out of your fruit and veggie slump today by trying something new!

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

BONUS: Kids in a Slump? Getting Your Kids to Eat More Fruits & Veggies

We asked Lisa Andrews, a registered dietitian and mother of two, how she gets kids to eat more produce. Here are a few of her tips:

1. Take your kids when you buy food. While most parents cringe at the idea, it’s important for kids to know where their food comes from. Take them to farmer’s markets and have them help select beans, tomatoes, corn, peaches and other seasonal fruits and vegetables. They may be more likely to try it if they picked it themselves.

2. Invite your kids to help you cook. Kids can clean and snap beans or rinse fruit to be served. This may help them become more confident in the kitchen and more likely to eat food they have prepared themselves.

3. Don’t force food. Encourage your child to try one bite to see if he/she likes it. Don’t reward with treats as it may set up emotional eating later, or your child may feel obligated to eat the new food just to get to dessert.

You can find more from Lisa at www.SoundBitesNutrition.com. Look for her on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/soundbitesnutritionllc) and Twitter (@nutrigirl).

Here’s a free PDF handout of this article that you can use however you’d like!

There are lots of great materials that would work in tandem with this article. For example, check out this Rainbow Salad Health Fair Display Kit — it’s a perfect way to capitalize on this lesson and get your clients to make healthful choices!

Here are a few items from that kit…

Eat From the Rainbow Banner 36" X 24" Vinyl

$65.00 ~~$110.00~~

Add to Cart

Make Your Salad A Rainbow Buttons 3" - Pack of 10

$28.00 ~~$32.00~~

Add to Cart

Eat From the Rainbow Banner Stand 24" X 62" - Wellness Fair Banner 24" X 62" - Nutrition Education Store

Eat From the Rainbow Banner Stand 24" X 67" - Wellness Fair Banner 24" X 67"

$125.00 ~~$135.00~~

Add to Cart

Display of the Month: Eating Pattern Shifts

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Stephanie Ronco

Shifting to a healthier eating pattern is — hands down — a great idea.

After all, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans assert, “most Americans urgently need to shift intakes to achieve […] healthy eating patterns.” MyPlate echoes this advice, urging people to “Focus on making healthy food and beverage choices from all five food groups including fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, and dairy […] Make small changes to create a healthier eating style.”

That’s why this month’s display is all about encouraging manageable shifts to improve eating patterns.

You may remember the myriad displays of the month leading up to this point, and I have to confess that this one is one of my very favorites. If you’d like to catch up before proceeding to the newest edition, simply follow the links below…

And now for the new stuff! Here’s a guide to everything you need to put together July’s Display of the Month…

The Materials:

Banner and Stand: Change It Up or Healthier Choices 1-2-3 or both!
On Your Table: Healthier Choices 1-2-3 Poster on a Tabletop Easel arranged behind some Make Healthy Choices a Snap Handout (this handout is now free — get a preview at the end of this post).
Prizes: Change It Up Bookmarks and Butterfly Stickers
In Front of Your Table: Change It Up Banner

The Activities:

Game: Make the Shift!
Discussion: What Makes Eating Pattern Shifts Sustainable?

The Details:

Start by setting up your space. Grab a big table and hang the Change It Up Banner in front of it. On top of the table, arrange a Healthier Choices 1-2-3 Poster on a Tabletop Easel, flanked by some Make Healthy Choices a Snap Handouts. Circle the whole thing with your prizes — a mix of Change It Up Bookmarks and Butterfly Stickers. Now, where do you have a little extra space? Where else would you like to draw the eye? Wherever that is, set up your banner: Change It Up or Healthier Choices 1-2-3 or both!

Survey your arrangement. What works? What doesn’t? Adjust accordingly, then get ready for your participants to arrive.

For the Make the Shift! Game, write down some common meals and snack foods that aren’t ideal for good health. On the back of each card, draft a few ideas for ways to shift that food/meal into a healthier element of a balanced eating pattern. Check out MyPlate and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans for some inspiration.

Once your participants arrive, announce the game and offer prizes for fantastic answers. Decide whether you’re going to have people play individually or in teams, then hold up your first card. What isn’t healthy about that meal/food? What can people do to help shift it into a healthier choice? How sustainable is that shift? Offer extra points for creativity. Once you’ve run out of cards, tally points and award prizes to the winners (alternatively, you can toss out prizes for participation and engagement as everyone plays the game).

For your discussion of What Makes Eating Pattern Shifts Sustainable? simply pose the question to the group. What kind of changes are easier to sustain over time? Why? Which are unsustainable? Why? What have people had success with in the past? What stumbling blocks have they overcome?

Oh, and here’s the free printable Make Healthy Choices a Snap handout for your display too!

Before we end this post, don’t miss these other great resources for eating pattern shifts…

Healthy Food Photo Poster Set 12X18 - 3 Posters 36X28 total display size

$36.00 ~~$36.00~~

Add to Cart

Portion Plate - Portion Control Plate for Diet and Exercise Success

$30.00 ~~$29.00~~

Add to Cart

3 Stepping Stones to Health Adult Health Fair Banner 48X36

$88.00 ~~$110.00~~

Add to Cart

Fill Your Plate with Color!

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Stephanie Ronco

As a special treat today, I’d like to share the handout that is usually only available to people who’ve already bought the Rainbow Salad Floor Sticker! This handout is perfect for email blasts, displays, wellness fairs, and more! How will you use your copy?

Strategies for Adding Color to Your Meals:

Make colorful fruits and vegetables part of every meal! If you do, you’ll get more nutrients, feel fuller for a longer period of time, and give your body the things it needs to stay healthy!

MyPlate asserts that people should fill half their plates with fruits and vegetables at each meal. That’s a tall order, but if you start by adding a salad to each meal and snack on fruits and vegetables instead of chips and crackers, you’ll be well on your way to a healthy eating pattern!

Variety is key too. Don’t just eat broccoli at every meal, every day! Mix things up by choosing a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Make your plate as colorful as you can, choosing a variety of foods at each meal.

Health Benefits of Colorful Meals :

When you make your plate colorful, you wind up eating lots of different fruits and vegetables, and that’s great for your health!

MyPlate asserts, “Eating a diet rich in vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet may reduce risk for heart disease, including heart attack and stroke.”

That same eating plan may help protect against certain types of cancers.

Plus, fruits and vegetables are loaded with fiber! According to MyPlate, a diet rich in fiber “may reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.”

How will you fill your plate in order to maximize these benefits?

Here’s a printable copy of the handout that you can use however you’d like!

And here are other great rainbow salad resources…

Eat From the Rainbow Banner 48"X36" Vinyl

$88.00 ~~$110.00~~

Add to Cart

Make Your Salad A Rainbow Buttons 3" - Pack of 10

$28.00 ~~$32.00~~

Add to Cart

Rainbow Salad Stickers 2" - Pack of 100

$12.99 ~~$12.99~~

Add to Cart

Sodium Math: What We Learned

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Stephanie Ronco

Have you seen the Sodium Math poster yet? We released it shortly after the Dietary Guidelines for Americans debuted earlier this year. It’s a fantastic resource for displays, presentations, and even simple office decoration. With engaging questions and alluring graphics, this poster teaches valuable lessons about salt in a memorable way.

Of course, putting it together was no mean feat.

Today I want to walk through the process of creating this poster — I figured it would be useful for your own designs and displays. There were even 3 top lessons that we learned as we put the poster together! Plus, sodium is one of those food elements that most people don’t know enough about.

You see, once the latest edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans was officially released, I just knew that we had to create some kind of visual guide to dealing with sodium. But what? And how?

There’s always a lot of confusion about where sodium comes from in our daily diets. People hear the word “sodium” and they automatically equate that with “salt shaker.” However, the salt shaker is only responsible for a tiny amount of the sodium that most people consume each day. Most of the sodium (about 75%) comes from what is present in restaurant meals and packaged meals from the grocery store.

The Sodium Math poster is an engaging visual that shows how much sodium we are actually consuming versus how much is the maximum for good health.

It’s a bit of a shock to see the big pile of sodium that we eat each day and to see the teaspoons of sodium that each food contains! To balance that shock, the poster also showcases many fresh foods that are low in sodium. The poster clearly illustrates the lesson that a little work to eat 1,000 mg less sodium per day can make a big change in blood pressure.

This infogram poster was fun to work on and we learned a lot. Here are the top 3 lessons we learned in the making of this poster…

Lesson #1: True Sodium Content

One of the biggest shocks to us in the research was about how much sodium is in fast food. Turkey sandwiches sound healthy, but a turkey deli sandwich has 2,810 mg of sodium. That’s almost a 2 day supply!

Lesson #2: Planned Overs

After reading this poster, we devoted more effort to making “planned overs.” (That’s when we cook extra food for dinner and eat it for lunch the next day). Cooking your own meals at home can make a huge difference in your health, especially when it comes to sodium.

Lesson #3: Small Shifts Are Important

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015 recommend that just a small shift to lower sodium intake by 1,000 mg per day can make a positive impact on lowering blood pressure. This lesson was new to us and it seems relatively easy to implement. Plus, everyone loves an easy math lesson! We chose math because we wanted a way to explain sodium, salt, sodium intake, recommended sodium intake and changes needed, along with engaging food photos that can illustrate the whole lesson quickly.

So there you have it! A little peek behind the curtain and 3 lessons we learned while creating the Sodium Math poster.

As a special bonus, here’s a copy of one of our top printable sodium handouts! Reduce Salt has lots of tips and tricks for lowering the sodium in your diet. Get your free copy today!

And there are lots of other amazing sodium resources in the Nutrition Education Store! Here are a few fan favorites…

Salt DVD - Salt Video - Salt and Sodium Education - Nutrition Education DVD

$99.00 ~~$99.00~~

Add to Cart

Low Sodium Choices Poster 12x18

$22.75 ~~$25.50~~

Add to Cart

Low Sodium Success Brochure - Packets of 25 - Low Sodium Shopping List

$25.00 ~~$28.00~~

Add to Cart

Nutrition Poster Guide

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Stephanie Ronco

Today I want to try something a little different.

I’d like to offer a tour of a few lessons from some of the top posters in the Nutrition Education Store.

You see, 3 different posters have been extremely popular amongst health and nutrition educators recently, and now I want to draw them to your attention. After all, my job is to help you look your very best right now. So let’s take a look at the 3 top posters in the Nutrition Education Store.

Are you ready for this?

Poster #1 is the new Sugar Math Poster. Its key lesson is to limit added sugars.

How does it teach this lesson?

Through math problems!

You see, sometimes communicating important nutrition messages is a matter of breaking them down into manageable sections, making the information both accessible and memorable.

This poster manages that with varied representations of just how much added sugar people should limit themselves to each day.

Remember, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise people to “Shift to reduce added sugars consumption to less than 10 percent of calories per day.” That 10% is roughly 200 calories for the average person. That’s equal to 50 grams, which in turn is equal to about 12 teaspoons. The Sugar Math Poster features images of each of these amounts in an approach that’s bound to appeal to a wide range of learning styles.

The poster also highlights key sources of added sugars and spells out how to figure out how much added sugar is in a variety of packaged foods. No wonder it’s one of the most popular posters in the store!

Now let’s move on to the next poster.

Poster #2 is the Eating Patterns Poster from the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans series. Its key lesson is to shift into a healthier eating pattern.

As you can see, this poster focuses on what is and is not included in a healthy eating pattern. With beautiful photos placed in a uniquely eye-catching arrangement, this post rocketed to the top of our list practically as soon as it was released.

So why represent healthy foods visually?

The photos demonstrate that healthy eating doesn’t have to be plain and boring. By making the foods that people need to consume look their very best, the photos in this poster add appeal to the eating pattern they’re illustrating. Plus, they provide a pop of color that would be welcome in any office, cafeteria, or display.

How would you use this poster in your life?

Finally, poster #3 is a classic — our very first MyPlate Poster. It teaches a fun way to balance your plate at each meal.

Ever since the USDA released MyPlate in 2011, it has been a popular tool to help educators teach their audiences about proper portions and proportions. As you know, My Plate offers a way to visualize a healthy and balanced plate at each meal, with half the plate filled with fruits and vegetables, grains taking up another quarter, and the remaining quarter of the plate filled with protein foods. A side of dairy rounds out the plate and completes the look.

Each food group has its own lessons and tips, and they all come together to create a healthy eating experience. This poster highlights the most important aspects of MyPlate, illustrating each food group and drawing attention to the key lessons associated with each section of the plate. Its as memorable as it is engaging, and the My Plate poster has been getting rave reviews since we first brought it to the store.

As an added bonus, I’d like to offer you an exclusive look at the handout that accompanies this MyPlate poster. Normally you could only get it if you bought the poster, but I want to make an exception today, so get your free copy of this handout now!

And finally, here are some more of the materials that are at the top of the Nutrition Education Store right now!

12 Lessons of Diabetes Kit

My Plate Handout Tearpad

Cooking Demonstration Kit: Set of 10 Cooking Demo Tools

New MyPlate Activity Page

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Stephanie Ronco

Here’s a brand-new My Plate activity page! This page is a perfect way to communicate the key lessons of MyPlate while keeping things light and fun. It makes an excellent icebreaker or game, and you can also use it as a prize at your next wellness fair booth!

MyPlate Activity Page:

Fill in the Blank!

Focus on choosing healthy foods and drinks from all five food groups including fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, and _ _ _ _ _. This will help you get all the nutrients you need.

It’s wise to choose foods with less sodium, saturated fat, and added _ _ _ _ _ _.

Try to fill half your plate with fruits and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ at each meal.

Choose mostly lean _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and dairy foods.

MyPlate Word Scramble:

Unscramble the words below to find key elements of MyPlate.

IENNRSTTU _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
YVTREIA _ _ _ _ _ _ _
OEHLW NAGSIR _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
GEHCANS _ _ _ _ _ _ _
TEALHH _ _ _ _ _ _
ITURF _ _ _ _ _
AABCELN _ _ _ _ _ _ _

My Plate Maze:

MyPlate Activity Page Answers:

Fill in the Blank:

Focus on choosing healthy foods and drinks from all five food groups including fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, and DAIRY. This will help you get all the nutrients you need.
It’s wise to choose foods with less sodium, saturated fat, and added SUGARS.
Try to fill half your plate with fruits and VEGETABLES at each meal.
Choose mostly lean PROTEIN and dairy foods.

My Plate Word Scramble:

NUTRIENTS
VARIETY
WHOLE GRAINS
CHANGES
HEALTH
FRUIT
BALANCE

MyPlate Maze:

Here’s the free printable activity page handout! How will you use your copy?

And here are some of my favorite MyPlate resources, available now in the Nutrition Education Store!

MyPlate Game Poster

MyPlate Education Kit

MyPlate Plates

Related Posts

Meal Makeover: Use MyPlate to Rearrange This Plate of Fried Chicken

Related Posts

Related Posts

Related Posts

Related Posts

Related Posts

Related Posts

MyPlate Activity Page:

MyPlate Activity Page Answers:

Related Posts

Cart