To successfully search for and enact healthy fundraising solutions at your school, the first step is to be realistic. Pretzels will not sell as well as a chocolate bar. That is just the bottom line. However, that shouldn't dictate your fundraising precepts. If you think about it, cigarettes would probably also outsell many healthy items, but obviously there will be no "Winston's For Wrestling" or "Kool's For Cross Country" fundraiser on campus anywhere.

Why are healthy snacks important? Let's be honest, they don't taste as good. Bottom line, nothing will taste as good at that exact moment as a chocolate bar, ice cream, cinnamon roll, cheese Danish...get the idea? But that doesn't obviously mean that's what kids and people in general, should eat. On the contrary, healthy snacks should be encouraged for the multiple positive effects they'll have.

Who's leading the fight against malnutrition and obesity in America? While it would seem the answer would be many different groups and individuals, it is clear that the Torrance Unified School District in Southern California has to be included in the mix. There is a piece of legislation called California Senate Bill 19 (often seen expressed as CA SB 19). This piece of legislation has wide reaching implications for nutrition content in California Schools. A good portion of it deals with stating that snacks in schools, even for fundraising, will be required to meet a new criteria. These snack items will be required to be less than 35% fat, less than 35% sugar, and less than 10% saturated fat. Additionally, they'll be less than 250 calories and grant exclusions for fat content to nuts and nut butters.

Nutrition in schools reached an all time low in the 1990's in America. School administrators and government officials were asleep at the wheel. Well, hopefully they were asleep at the wheel. Because the only other possibility is that they were so greedy for the corporate fast food and junk food dollars pouring into their institutions to care about the damage being done to the Nation's students in the form of obesity, type 2 diabetes and students being overweight. In any case, money was flowing in, obesity was outof control and no healthy fundraising solutions were being sought.

Success or failure in fundraising has as much to do with planning as anything else. While there are different ways to go about creating a plan you intend to follow, it is important to be mindful of the following when doing so.

What parent doesn't want their kids to eat healthier? We've all had to bribe, cajole, threaten and manipulate our children at least once, but wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to stoop to such heavy handed tactics? Here are some tips to help you out.

Are you guilty of child abuse? With all the evidence supporting the healthy benefits of eating fish, it seems almost like abuse not to feed your children fish on a regular basis.

Lots of families have a common problem. The little ones just don't want to eat what's good for them! But kids need the correct amount of nutrition every day, especially during those tender years when their bodies and minds are still growing and developing.

Question: Could you possibly be sued tomorrow for what you're feeding your child today? Maybe. Let's check it out.

I just read an article about a study that compared the health of Americans with those of Britons of the same age and ethnicity ie caucasian, of course the Americans won hands down in ill health. The article wondered why with all the money that we spend on health care over here, we are more unhealthy. They were saying that maybe we spend less on preventive health care etc. As a physician that has practiced medicine on two continents and being married to one that actually practiced in England for 5 years I can vouch for the fact that we practice more preventive medicine here than anywhere in the world. The problem lies somewhere else. As a country USA has more chemicals insidiously pervading in every aspect of our lives than any country in the world. No wonder with all the money in the health care system we are so unhealthy.