The Things We Do For Our Kids

Try not to laugh — this is me looking pretty ridiculous in a pea pod costume. The photo was taken last week at my kids’ elementary school during Eating the Rainbow, an exciting weeklong wellness program that encourages kids to include more colorful fruits and vegetables in their diets. I wanted to share it with you in hopes of inspiring anyone who might dare to dress up to get kids excited about healthy eating at their own school.

Here’s how it worked…

Similar to spirit week, each day of the week was a different color — Monday was Orange, Tuesday was Red, Wednesday was Purple/Blue, Thursday was Green and Friday was Yellow/White. Each day, kids were encouraged to show their healthy spirit by wearing the color of the day and bringing in fruits or vegetables in that color for lunch.

To make it fun, we decorated the school with healthy eating posters (like “Spit out your gum, eat a plum!” or “Veggies rock so eat your broc!”) and handed out colored wristbands in the color of the day during lunchtime. We also dressed up in fruit and veggie costumes and handed out stickers to kids as they walked into school in the morning. They loved it!

We coordinated the colors with the school menu so kids who bought lunch could participate. Whole Foods even came in one day at lunchtime to make smoothies for the kids to sample.

Eating the Rainbow was put on by our school’s Wellness Committee. The program was originally created by New York mom, Sharon Pesner, for her kids’ Dix Hills, NY Elementary School. It was so successful in getting kids excited about healthy eating, it has started to spread to other schools around the country. It’s a wonderful program that can be adapted and modified to work at any school. If you’d like more information on how to start a Wellness Committee or implement Eating the Rainbow at your school, feel free to email me at jennifer@onceuponachef.com.