Helping parents and teachers instill healthy habits

It’s often a challenge for teachers to fit a health and fitness curriculum into an already packed day where more traditional academic topics are often the primary focus.

“It’s a tricky topic, I think, for teachers to know how to include in their curriculum … there’s a lot of conflicting information out there about what really is healthy, and it seems that that information is changing all the time, ” says Leslie Feldt, a curriculum specialist at Sesame Workshop.

She explains that the Workshop conducted a lot of research before developing comprehensive materials that did a lot of the heavy lifting for teachers, reducing their burden of struggling to keep up with the latest information on healthy habits.

Kids are responding too. Healthy Habits for Life materials are all available online, including games that allow children to dance along with Zoe, eat healthy foods – or “anytime foods” -- with Cookie Monster, and brush their teeth with Elmo. Coloring pages and activities can be printed out to help reinforce healthy living habits. Storybooks give parents a tool to use when they talk to kids about food, exercise, and hygiene choices.