A New Way to Have Family Day All Year Round: The Kids Cook Monday!

NEW YORK, Sept. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --September 27th is the 10th Anniversary of Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children™.  This public health initiative was founded by Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Founder and Chairman of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, to highlight the health and social benefits of frequent family dinners.

To help parents extend Family Day throughout the year, try The Kids Cook Monday – a weekly opportunity for families to take health into their own hands. The Kids Cook Monday helps kids and their parents make a habit of cooking and eating together with a website that offers comprehensive tools (pdf), insightful educational articles, kids cooking tips and a range of weekly kid-friendly recipes.

Experts agree that cooking and eating with your family can help combat the rise of childhood obesity, which has tripled in the last 30 years.  A study(1) in Pediatrics found that kids who regularly ate dinner with their family were less likely to be obese. First Lady Michelle Obama says getting kids involved in the kitchen is a key element in her Let's Move initiative, "If they're engaged in making the healthy snack, they are more likely to eat it."(2)

"In the midst of our hectic lives," suggests Dr. Alwyn Cohal, M.D., Director of the Harlem Health Promotion Center, "it's important to periodically take a moment to reflect and to reconnect with family." He's spearheading The Kids Cook Monday program with Teacher's College of Columbia University. "I believe this pilot program," adds Dr. Pamela Koch, Executive Director of the Center for Food & Environment at Teacher's College, "will provide families with enthusiasm and motivation to cook as a family – while teaching practical skills to shop for healthful foods, prepare recipes together, and make mealtime quality family time."                      

Online cooking encyclopedia, Foodista.com, recently stepped in to launch The Kids Cook Monday Recipe Contest. Barnaby Dorfman, CEO of Foodista, relates, "We're excited to partner with The Kids Cook Monday. American children are suffering multiple health crises directly connected to diet – ironically not due to lack of food, but rather lack of information. Helping families find recipes and gain food knowledge so they can cook for themselves is crucial for an entire generation of kids."

The contest's winner, Julie Gorman of GetHealthyCheap.com, agrees. "Once upon a time, we'd put a dish in front of our daughter Ash and she'd turn her nose up at it. I never stopped hearing the question, "What's that?" with the inevitable, "I don't think I'm going to like it." Now that we're cooking together, I hear a new question, "What's that taste like?" with a follow-up, "Can I try a bite?"

The Kids Cook Monday is an initiative of The Monday Campaigns, a nonprofit organization that seeks to make Monday the day to start and sustain healthy behaviors. Its President, Peggy Neu, says: "We want to provide parents with the tools to continue Family Day throughout the year. By making an appointment each week to cook and eat with their kids, parents are more likely to make it a habit."

If you'd like to keep the family dinner tradition alive, this Monday and every week thereafter, visit http://www.healthymonday.org/the-kids-cook-monday/ or write [email protected]. You can also follow The Kids Cook Monday on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/KidsCookMonday.

(1) Pediatrics. 2010. Household Routines and Obesity in US Preschool-Aged Children. Sarah E. Anderson and Robert C. Whitaker.  Elk Grove Village, Illinois. American Academy of Pediatrics.

(2) AOL Kitchen Daily. Michelle Obama's Tips for Getting Kids to Eat Healthy. Megan Steintrager. http://www.kitchendaily.com/2010/07/08/michelle-obama-web-chat/

The Monday Campaigns Inc. is a non-profit public health organization founded in 2005 in association with Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse Newhouse School of Public Communications.  Its goal is to end chronic preventable disease in the U.S. by offering people a weekly prompt that can help them start and sustain healthy behaviors.  Their earliest campaign, Meatless Monday, has grown into an international movement with celebrities, restaurants, schools, cities and countries joining together to cut out meat once a week for their health and the health of the planet.

The Harlem Health Promotion Center is an initiative of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Its mission is to serve as a collaboration of community, academic and public health stakeholders that uses research, education, advocacy and service delivery to improve the health and well being of the Harlem community.

The Center for Food & Environment at Teachers College is one of the nation's leading research and education centers. As part of the Program in Nutrition at Teachers College Columbia University, the faculty at the Center engage in some of the most pressing societal concerns related to personal health as well as environmental sustainability. Their research is translated into educational materials and outreach to empower individuals, schools, and communities to take charge and act on interrelated social problems from childhood obesity to food system sustainability.

Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children™ is a national movement launched by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in 2001 to remind parents that frequent family dinners make a difference. Celebrated on the fourth Monday in September — the 27th in 2010 — Family Day promotes parental engagement as a simple and effective way to reduce children's risk of smoking, drinking and using illegal drugs. For more information about Family Day, visit www.CASAFamilyDay.org.

Contact: Joey Lee, [email protected]

SOURCE The Monday Campaigns