Fit Families

We recently put together a book list called Fit Families. Suggestions for the list were provided by C-U Fit Families, a coalition of 60 local organizations of which The Urbana Free Library is a part. The group has been meeting for about a year with help from a grant secured by Illinois Public Media. Our goal is to work together to promote childhood wellness in our community.

There are four topics of primary concern: Access to Healthy Food at Home and at School, Shared Family Meals, Family Fitness, and Food Advertising and Marketing.

Grover’s Guide to Good Eating, part of the Happy Healthy Monsters series is full of easily digestible tidbits about good, healthy eating. Grover and Elmo let really young kids know that it is important to eat together as a family, that eating your colors, bright green, red, purple and orange fruits and vegetables is good for you and that eating a reasonable amount of food and drinking plenty of water will help you keep heathy.

But if your kids are older they may already have developed some unhealthy habits so A Parent’s Guide to Childhood Obesity; a Road Map to Health gives parents advice on how to make course corrections for children of all ages. It examines your parenting style and the challenges you might have to meet to get your child on the right track.

One of the ways we can get kids to eat healthy is to make recipes that are parent tested and kid approved and that is just what the Real Food for Healthy Kids cookbook does. One of my favorite recipes in here is the Hole-y eggs. My mom actually made these for me back in the dark ages when I was a kid. Only this recipe substitutes whole or multigrain bread and olive oil. It also suggests you cut the hole in the bread using a cookie cutter. You put the bread in the skillet and break the egg into the hole and cook it. There are also recipes for Squish Squash, Watermelon Gell-ee, and a Bento Box Chef Salad.

How can we get good fresh food at home? We can grow some of it ourselves, go to a farmer’s market or select organic at the store. The Green Truck Garden Giveaway is a picture book about a neighborhood receiving free seeds and garden almanacs from some folks in a Green Truck. You see them growing their own food and along the way get tips and recipes and even the history of some of the fruits, vegetables and flowers they cultivate.

Gardening is a great way to keep moving but The Busy Body Book, a kid’s guide to fitness shows how all the movements you make when jumping or running or walking the dog are good for your bones, joints, muscles, heart, brain, and lungs.

All these and more are available at The Urbana Free Library.


Grover’s Guide to Good Eating by Naomi Keinberg, Random House, 2007

A Parent’s Guide to Childhood Obesity; a road map to health by Sandra G. Hassink. American Academy of Pediatrics, 2006.

Real Food for Healthy Kids; 200+ easy, wholesome, recipes, William Morrow, 2008.

Green Truck Garden Giveaway by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, Simon and Schuster, 1997.

The Busy Body Book; a kid’s guide to fitness by Lizzy Rockwell. Dragon Fly Books, 2004.