What it is.

Healthy Little Cooks’ Weekend Food Challenge is healthy cooking challenge that takes place exclusively on the weekend (Friday-Sunday).  The WFC encourages parental teaching moments around healthy cooking, food and nutrition through exposure, activity and education.  Each weekend, the WFC features a different healthy food on HealthyLittleCooks.com.  Then, fun information on that food is highlighted.  Some categories are:  silly food facts, nutrition, care and picking, tips, warnings and recipes.  All content is written for families, but with kids in mind.

How it works.

Each weekend Healthy Little Cooks releases a new food and then challenges kids (and their grown-ups) to create recipes, take pictures, or shoot video cooking with the featured food.  Our goal is to increase exposure and education of healthy foods while helping grown-ups and little cooks make healthier food choices over the weekend using common foods we see and eat everyday.

Why we’re doing it.

A study published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing (Fall 2009), confirms that we generally consume more calories on the weekend than during the week.  The tendency to overeat is greater in kids and grown-ups that are already overweight.  Many who start their week eating healthy often lose focus during the weekend.  This can contribute up to an extra 400 calories a weekend, which (if done every weekend) equates to almost six extra pounds a year.  In addition, because families often have more time to cook healthy foods on the weekends, the WFC program capitalizes on this opportunity by maximizing healthy cooking “teaching moments”.

How your school can get involved.

Eating and cooking healthy requires ongoing education and support.  To maximize the benefits of this program without creating more work for yourself, volunteers or staff, we’ve listed easy ideas for how your school, PTA and organization can participate:

1. Include the WFC monthly flyer in your school/organization’s newsletter.
2. Distribute the WFC monthly flyer in Physical Education classes.
3. Invite Healthy Little Cooks to do a cooking demo at your school/organization’s health fair or PTA event.
4. Host a healthy cooking demo during your schools assembly using a featured WFC food.
5. Host a cooking challenge at your school/organization, awarding the winners by judging most creative and healthy way to use a WFC ingredient and best looking picture.

Neat Articles on the Weekend Eating Subject (aka. Our Sources)

Marketing Power:  “Daily, Week Part and Holiday Patterns in Consumer’s Caloric Intake“, Written by: Adwait Khare and J. Jeffrey Inman,  November 1, 2009.
ThatsFit.com: “Weekend May Derail Your Diet, Study Finds“, written by: Ashley Negila, Jan 7, 2010
Time Healthland:  “Have another cookie, it’s the holidays!  Why our eating habits vary on weekends and special holidays“, written by: Tiffany O’Collaghan, December 24, 2009