Quest for Optimal Nutritional Health

What is a "Healthy" Food? The term "healthy food" is overused and poorly defined. While some foods are more nutritious than others, if your idea of "healthy foods" is limited to a small set of "super-foods" it may seem impossible and uninviting to eat a nutritious diet. This PDF defines healthy foods as nutrient-rich choices and focuses on what you can eat rather than what is forbidden.

Functional Food
Functional foods are foods and food components that provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition. This handout lists of a wide variety of functional foods and practical ways you can include them in your daily diet.

Healthy Children - at Home and School
Importance of Family Meals
Family meals offer families time for nutritious foods, socialization and role modeling of appropriate table manners. A study published in the April 2006 Journal of the American Dietetic Association, found that both parents and their adolescent children value family meals. A 1994 Lou Harris-Reader's Digest national poll of high school seniors showed higher scholastic scores among students who frequently shared meals with their families. Read Family Mealtimes: More Than Just Eating Together and learn more. Family Mealtimes: More Than Just Eating Together

School Wellness Policies
To better prepare students to learn, the school environment should be conductive to healthy lifestyles. The 2004 reauthorization of the Federal Child Nutrition program mandated that school districts adopt a Student Wellness Policy.
To learn more about School Wellness Policies, check out this resource pages created by the California School Boards Association. Dairy Council of California programs support local school wellness policies as documented in this handout.

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