February is American Heart Month, and Children’s Aid is proud to offer our 50,000 children, youth, and families in New York City’s most under-resourced neighborhoods programs to eat smart and keep your heart heathy. Through our Go!Healthy initiative, Children’s Aid works to educate youth and their families around healthy eating habits.

According to the American Heart Association, minority populations, including African Americans and Latinos, have a higher risk of suffering from diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes.

This month the Go!Healthy team wants everyone to consider their heart health when picking out foods to share with their families and loved ones, and to remind them of the healthy programs we offer.

• Go!Chefs—This after-school program teaches cooking and nutrition to youth and culminates in the Iron Go!Chefs competition each year.
• Go!Kids and Go!Kids Cook—This Early Childhood program teaches children ages 3 and 4 about healthy foods and has them preparing their own meals and snacks in the classroom.
• SNAP-Ed— This vast initiative includes nutrition and cooking education for youth in our after-school programs, healthy eating workshops for adults and Children’s Aid and Department of Education staff, and recipes and resources for building and maintaining healthy habits.
• Food Justice—This after-school program encourages middle and high-school students to connect food to social, political, and economic themes that affect their communities.
• Go!Healthy Meals— Children’s Aid provides hundreds of thousands of fresh, wholesome meals to children in early childhood and after-school programming across many Children’s Aid sites. This involves planning menus, training and supporting cooks, and assisting in food procurement.
   

The mission of Children’s Aid is to help children in poverty to succeed and thrive from cradle through college, and our food access initiative, looks to improve the eating environments in and around our sites, bringing fresh fruit and vegetables to our communities.

“It’s important to introduce a healthy variety of foods to children and involve them in meal preparation as a creative and effective way to enrich their health. By teaching children nutritious habits now, we are training them for a healthy future as an adolescent and adult,” said Beth Bainbridge, project director for Children’s Aid Go!Healthy SNAP-Ed program. “We teach healthy habits every day, but with February being Heart Healthy month, it’s a good time to emphasize the benefit of our programs and services.