It’s the end of summer, and your fingernails are growing faster than the weeds in your garden (yes, fingernails really do grow faster in summer…so does hair.). But that doesn’t mean they’re growing better. To stop the splitting, breaking and peeling, take biotin, the only nutritional supplement that has received a universal thumbs-up from science. Long used to treat damaged horse hooves, it works for us two-legged creatures, too (since our nails are made of the same substance, called keratin). Try 300 micrograms a day.

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Our MassachusettsYouth Coaches will tell you that creating an environment where your kids can make healthy nutritional choices is one of the most important steps you can take to ensure the health of your child.

By fostering a supportive environment, you and your family can develop a positive relationship with healthy food. You can lead them by your example.

Here are a few tips for getting children to eat healthy food and form wise nutritional habits:

1. Avoid placing restrictions on food. Restricting food increases the risk your child may develop eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia later in life. It can also have a negative effect on growth and development. Instead of banning foods, talk about all the healthy, nutritional options there are — encouraging your family to chose fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, and low-fat dairy, while avoiding heavily processed, low-quality junk foods.
2. Keep healthy food at hand. Children will eat what’s available. Keep fruit in a bowl on the counter, not buried in the crisper section of your fridge. Remember, your child can only choose foods that you stock in the house. And have an apple for your own snack. Your actions scream louder than anything you will ever tell them.
3. Don’t label foods as “good” or “bad.” Instead, tie foods to the things your child cares about, such as sports or doing well in school. Let your child know that lean protein such as turkey and calcium in dairy products give them strength for sports. The antioxidants in fruits and vegetables add luster to skin and hair. And eating a healthy breakfast can help them keep focus in class.
4. Praise healthy choices. Give your children a proud smile and praise when they choose healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, or low-fat dairy.
5. Don’t nag about unhealthy choices. When children choose fatty, fried, unhealthy foods, redirect them by suggesting a healthier option.
   •   Instead of regular potato chips and dip, offer baked tortilla chips and salsa.
   •   If your child wants candy, try dipping fresh strawberries in a little chocolate sauce. Too busy? Keep naturally sweet dried fruit at home for quick snacks.
   •   Instead of buying French fries, try roasting cut up potatoes in the oven (tossed in just a bit of oil).
6. Never use food as a reward. This could create weight problems in later life. Instead, reward your children with something physical and fun — perhaps a trip to the park or a quick game of catch.
7. Sit down to family dinners at night. If this isn’t a tradition in your home, make it one. Research shows that children who eat dinners at the table with their parents have better nutrition and are less likely to get in serious trouble as teenagers. Start with 1 night a week, and then work up to 3 or 4, to gradually build the habit.
8. Prepare plates in the kitchen. You can put the right portion of each item on everyone’s dinner plate, instead of offering up a food buffet or serve-yourself style. This way your children will learn to recognize healthy portion sizes. If adjusting to healthier portion sizes means smaller portions for your family, help make the switch seem less shocking by using smaller plates.
9. Give the kids some control. Ask your children to take 3 bites of all the foods on their plate and give each one a grade, such as A, B, C, D, or F. When healthy foods — especially certain vegetables — get high marks, serve them more often. Offer the items your children don’t like less frequently. This lets your children participate in decision making. After all, dining is a family affair.
10. Consult your pediatrician. Always talk with your child’s doctor before putting your child on a weight loss diet, trying to help your child gain weight, or making any significant changes in the type of foods your child eats. Never diagnose your child as too heavy or too thin by yourself.

They also know five foods strongly linked with weight gain and five others linked with weight loss.

Five foods associated with weight gain:

• Potato chips
• Other potatoes
• Sugar-sweetened beverages
• Unprocessed red meats
• Processed meats

Five foods linked with less gain and even weight loss:

• Vegetables
• Whole grains
• Fruits
• Nuts
• Yogurt

Packing healthy lunches and snacks to take to work, after school, or youth sports offers many benefits. Healthy brown-bag meals can reduce fat, calories, and sodium in our diet, improving overall health. Smart choices can help us maintain a healthy weight. And brown-bag lunches just may improve your child’s IQ.

According to research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, a diet high in fat, sugar, and processed food starting at age 3 may lower IQ in later childhood, while a diet packed with whole foods and important nutrients may do the opposite. 

To move lunch and snack time into a healthful direction:

• Choose foods with higher amounts of the nutrients we need: fiber, protein, calcium, and vitamin C.
• Avoid foods loaded with things we need to eat less of: saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar.

An easy way to accomplish both goals is to include more whole foods — and less processed foods, junk food, and fast food at meals and snacks.

10-Minute Lunch and Snack Picks

Cold Cheese and Fruit Kit: Make your own “Lunchables” by filling a reusable container with assorted cheese slices, easy-to-eat fruit like apple slices and grapes, and whole wheat crackers.

Falafel Pita Pleaser: Purchase ready-to-bake falafels in the vegetarian refrigerator section of some supermarkets. Bake them up ahead of time, then insert them in a whole wheat pita pocket spread with some hummus (homemade or store-bought).

Fish in a Pinch: Work a fish serving into your week by adding tuna or salmon to your green salad, pasta salad, or sandwich. For a satisfying snack, toss some tuna or salmon with balsamic vinaigrette and enjoy with whole grain crackers.

Love Your Leftovers: One of the easiest ways that our Norwell Personal Trainers cover nutrition, is making sure clients have a healthy lunch tomorrow by starting with dinner tonight. Before serving dinner, we suggest  packing some of it away in portable containers, store them in the refrigerator, and then takes one to work the next day.

Pasta Salad Prep: Make cold pasta salad with leftover pasta shapes from last night. Toss chilled whole grain pasta with cheese cubes, lots of bite-size vegetables, and a homemade or bottled vinaigrette dressing made with olive oil or canola oil.

Pizza Bagels or Pizza Calzones: Bake a mini pizza in 5 minutes by spreading pizza sauce or pesto on whole wheat bagel halves or a whole wheat pita pocket (use the whole pita as a crust). Top with shredded cheese and your favorite veggie toppings (green onions, tomatoes, chopped red peppers, onions, olives, minced garlic, sliced mushrooms),  then broil in a toaster oven until the cheese is bubbling. If using a pita, fold one half over to make a calzone! Wrap it up for your bag lunch or, if your office has a toaster oven, bring it to work unbaked and bake it there.

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1 ounce baked tortilla chips
1/4 cup drained canned 50% less-sodium black beans, heated
4 ounces grilled extra-lean boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into small cubes
2 tablespoons salsa con queso, all-natural, heated
3 tablespoons finely chopped seeded tomato
2 tablespoons thinly sliced jalapeño chile pepper

Lay the chips on a dinner plate. Top them evenly with the beans, followed by the chicken. Drizzle the cheese evenly over the top. Top with the tomato and jalapeño slices and serve.

Makes 1 serving

If you’ve been watching Jamie Oliver’s show (which you should be), Food Revolution, you know he’s been battling the Los Angeles School Board for months now. The show may be canceled but his efforts have proved fruitful, as the L.A. School Board has finally agreed to remove corn dogs, chicken nuggets and all other breaded items from the schools’ menu.

These items will be replaced by new, more healthier choices such as California sushi rolls and spinach tortellini in butternut squash sauce, as well as a variety of ethnic foods. With a delicious menu like that, it’s hard to imagine why the board has been so resistant.

This change is fast on the heels of the school board’s decision to stop serving flavored milks (chocolate and strawberry), a hot button topic of Oliver’s, who’s committed to campaigning against childhood obesity in America.

In one of the first episodes of Season 2′s Food Revolution, he demonstrated exactly how much sugar L.A. school kids are consuming in just one week by filling up a school bus with processed sugar, until it was literally seeping out the windows and onto the parking lot.

School board member Tamar Galatzan said: “I really don’t understand why we’re letting a TV chef dictate our policy. I think we are demonizing milk.” Even the American Heart Association claims that the nutritional benefits of flavored milk outweigh the harm of added sugar, but as Jamie Oliver keeps saying, “Why can’t we do better?” There’s no excuse for accepting the status quo when it results in a near epidemic of diseases related to unhealthy eating habits.

The top five disease-related causes of deaths in America are heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic lower-respiratory disease and diabetes, all of which are significantly influenced by diet, particularly diabetes.

According to the Institute of Food Technologists, just over seven in 10 meals (72%) are now prepared in the home, whereas in 2006 less than 30% of Americans cooked their own dinners. The economy is being attributed to this trend change rather than a desire for healthier foods, but the result is still a step in the right direction.

However, in 2010, selecting groceries with the intent to prepare nutritious meals was a priority for food shoppers, second only to taste. Food education, teaching children where food comes from and how it affects our bodies as well as how to cook healthy meals in the home is a big part of Oliver’s revolution.

The war is not over, but a significant battle has surely been won. Now that some schools are recognizing the importance of better nutrition hopefully others will follow suit. In fact, Fergus Falls Public School system in Minnesota is just one of many who are finally realizing that the foods they’re serving are not healthy.

“This is a giant step forward for the health and future of 680,000 kids in Los Angeles and leads the way for more school districts around the country to follow,” said Oliver. As with all progress in the school systems, change starts at home. It’s the parents that need to fight for their children’s health and welfare.

It was the parents and the children speaking out for their desire for a Food Revolution, which really shifted the tides in the battle for a healthier menu in L.A. schools, and the only way positive change will take place in the rest of the school systems throughout the U.S.

Now if only we could make this possible where we live…. C’ya at Morning Boot Camp.

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Humans around the world have enjoyed eating eggs for almost ten thousand years. Jungle fowl were domesticated to egg-laying hens around 7500 BCE in Southeast Asia, meals in ancient Rome started with an egg course, and even the walls of Egyptian tombs depict eggs.

The first thing you need to know: Organic eggs are best. To get the USDA organic stamp, hens must have access to the outdoors, cannot be raised in cages, and cannot be fed antibiotics or grains with GMOs. Remember the big salmonella outbreak and half-billion eggs recalled in 2010? Organic egg eaters didn’t even have to worry.

The egg might not seem all that exciting at first, but this food has remained a kitchen staple for the greater part of human civilization for a reason. In fact, here are eight of ‘em:

• Eggs are inexpensive. While some people balk at the cost of organic eggs, which hovers around $4 per dozen in LA, that’s really only 33 cents per egg – which makes for one cheap breakfast! Commercial eggs may be less expensive to buy, but the costs of flooding your body with hormones and pesticides will show up later. With eggs, always go organic.

• Eggs are a great source of protein. With so many Americans trying to reduce their intake of red meat and pork (and with organic chicken prices around $7 per pound), eggs can make up the difference and provide you and your family with an inexpensive source of fuel. Each egg contains 12.6 grams of protein, which is over a quarter of the recommended daily intake of protein (based on a 2000 calorie per day diet).

• Eggs are quick and easy to cook! It takes less than a minute to fry an egg. In five minutes you can chop a few veggies to add to the mix, throw a whole grain piece of bread in the toaster and you will have a healthy breakfast to kick off the day right.

• Eggs are extremely versatile and can be cooked to suit individual preference. How do you like your eggs: scrambled, poached, fried, pickled, over-easy, sunny side up, soft-boiled or hard-boiled? Or egg whites only? For those with picky eaters in the family, eggs provide the variation needed to keep everyone’s bellies full.

• Eggs work for breakfast, lunch or dinner – or a snack! The egg has a rightful place as breakfast royalty no doubt, but try an egg on your lunchtime BLT or cook up dinner Denver omelets for a change of pace. Hit by mid-afternoon hunger pains? Eat a boiled egg to crank up your energy with protein instead of choosing a sugary snack.

• Eggs are nutritional powerhouses. Back in the day, egg yolks were linked to high cholesterol and heart disease. Those old studies have been disproved, and now experts agree that eggs pack a punch of important vitamins and minerals that benefit everything from your nervous system to your hair and nails. Eggs contain all nine amino acids, a hefty dose of choline and are one of the only foods to contain naturally occurring vitamin D, which wards off depression.

• Eggs work magic in the kitchen. Whether you need a fluffy meringue for a lemon pie, a thick custard for a French dessert or a binding material for your meatballs, eggs are up to the task. Eggs’ unique properties lift, thicken and bind some of our favorite meals and in many cases, there is no substitute.

• Or… Just listen to your South Shore Boot Camp Instructor and enjoy one of the easiest, cheapest, healthiest food items around: The egg.

No. 1: Improve Your Posture

Slouch and your stomach pooches. So straighten up, and you’ve done your abs a favor without breaking a sweat! For better posture while standing, align your ears over your shoulders, shoulders over hips, hips over knees, and knees over ankles. Keep the fronts of the shoulders open like a shirt on a hanger, instead of a shirt on a peg. Draw your navel to your spine and keep your weight even on the balls of your feet and your heels.

Feels Like Soreness or swelling on the sides of yours toes.

What to do about it: Leave wiggle room in your shoes. You may need to go up a half size when you buy sneakers, because your feet tend to swell during exercise. Use toenail clippers (not fingernail clippers or scissors) to cut straight across instead of rounding the corners when you give yourself a pedicure.

People who overpronate when they walk can exacerbate existing problems in the big toes, we suggests using inserts to reduce pronation (walking on the insides of your feet). If you have diabetes or any circulatory disorder, have your ingrown toenails treated by a podiatrist.

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