Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Screen Time with Kids

It’s nearly March, and we’re excited for all the great things that this month brings -- college basketball, delicious fresh veggies from Pathfinder Produce, and we're gearing up for our DASH TO THE SPLASH training sessions.

If you’re looking for a fun way to get in better shape, DASH may be just the program you’re looking for.  Teams of walkers/runners and volunteer coaches will meet two times a week at Pathfinder Village starting on March 21.  Over the next eight weeks, individuals will gradually build their stamina and strength, all to get set for the SPLASH PATH 5K and Fun Walk, which is set for Saturday, May 20.  You can call Monica Clark at 607-965-8377, ext. 107 to take part in DASH TO THE SPLASH, and online registration is open for Splash Path at splashpath.racewire.com.

We’re pleased to share that Excellus BlueCross BlueShield is a sponsor of Splash Path again this year, and is partnering with Pathfinder Village and other organizations to help improve the quality of life in our communities.  To learn more about Splash Path opportunities, please visit our website

We will have information about DASH TO THE SPLASH at our Pathfinder Produce markets, which are set in Edmeston on Thursdays from 1 to 5 p.m., and in Morris at the UMC on Fridays, from noon to 5 p.m.  We hope to see you then!

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Screen Time with Kids

Through our Pathfinder Produce blog, we’ve written many times about limiting screen time, especially for kids. However, there are fun ways to use that limited screen time to encourage healthy eating choices.

I came across a couple of fun sites for younger kids about health and nutrition. One is Super Crew for Kids, which is part of a larger site called Super Kids Nutrition. The main page has links to resources for parents and educators, and their motto is “Saving the world, one healthy food at a time!” A worthy endeavor, indeed.

The kids’ page has a cast of animated characters, and when you click on them they tell you about what their favorite foods are and why they are good choices. Each character has a color which matches the foods that they like. For instance, Penny’s color is purple, and her foods are purple cabbage, eggplant, plums, purple grapes, mulberries, and purple potatoes. Fun! There are also printable coloring pages, a book corner with recommendations for food-related stories, and “Nutrition Adventures” (printable instructions for food-related activities).

Another fun site is Choose My Plate. The link to the kids’ page has educational video games, suggestions to get in the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity, printable word puzzles, and songs and videos to help kids get moving! The rest of the website has helpful information about living a healthy lifestyle for adults too.

Sites like these are a fun way that adults and children can learn and have fun together with their screen time, and then move on to the kitchen for some healthy food activities and outside for some fresh air and exercise. 
Until next time, teach your children well!

Martha (and Lori)

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Channeling Hygge, or the Practice of Celebrating Simple Joys

We hope everyone will join us this week at our delicious Pathfinder Produce markets, to discover all the great flavors and textures that abound with fresh fruits and veggies.  The members of our Adult Day Services program work diligently each week to put on our markets, at Pathfinder Village Commons on Thursdays from 1 to 5 p.m., and on Fridays at the UMC-Morris from Noon to 5 p.m.  Stop by and say “hello” to everyone, catch up on the latest community news with friends, and find some great produce deals for your family’s meals.

We want to also let everyone know that we’re seeking participants for our Dash to the Splash Program, our 8-week fitness and training program that helps get folks ready to take part in our fourth annual Splash Path 5K and Fun Walk, which is set for May 20.  The Dash to the Splash program will meet two times each week after work at Pathfinder, and will form teams of runners and walkers.  The teams work together, under the guidance of a volunteer coach, to build strength, stamina and get ready for Splash Path … we also have a tremendous amount of fun along the way!  To learn more, visit our Facebook Events pages. 

To sign up for Dash to the Splash, which will start on March 21, please contact Monica Clark by March 15 at (607) 965-8377 x 107.  To learn more about Splash Path, a low-cost family fun color run and walk, visit our Facebook event page or website, and you can register online at splashpath.racewire.com.  

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This past weekend the weather was beautiful, a perfect time for a winter hike.  As the snow was a little deep on Saturday afternoon, I broke out a little-used pair of snowshoes to see if they would help with walking.  They did, and I enjoyed going around a trail I’ve made around our property, a combination of meadow, woods and quite a bit of swamp. (Perhaps I’m channeling my inner-Shrek).  

I’m still on track with my steps-goal per day (tracked by the wearable widget I got in December), and on my days-off I try to give our 8-year old lab Della a good walk too.  She probably walks twice as much as I do -- her Labrador instincts lead her to investigate lots of thickets and jump into any pools of water she can find.

Once we came back to the house, a hot-cup of tea was in order for me, and she curled up in her crate, her happy place, located close to our Jǿtul woodstove.  She is a terrific snorer, and these hikes send her to the Land of Nod.  As she snored, I checked my Facebook feed … many friends were also going outside to play, and enjoying their fire pits and fireplaces.  It’s as if we Central New Yorkers are discovering traditions of Scandinavia, a region known for ice and snow, and yet paradoxically has some of the highest levels of societal happiness and well-being among developed countries.

Last year, one Scandinavian term got a lot of play in the media, a concept called hygge (pronounced “hoo-guh”), a Danish term meaning “a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.”   According to the Hygge House website, hygge is “a feeling or mood that comes from taking genuine pleasure in making ordinary, everyday moments more meaningful, beautiful or special. Hygge doesn’t require learning ‘how to hygge,’ adopting it as a lifestyle or buying anything. It simply requires being present and recognizing a moment that feels so sweet, cozy, charming, special or nice that you just have to name the moment.”  

Hygge House’s blogger Alex Beauchamp offers, “Danes created hygge because they were trying to survive boredom, cold, dark and sameness, and the undefinable feeling of Hygge was a way for them to find moments to celebrate or acknowledge and to break up the day, months or years. With so many cold, dark days, the simple act of a candle glowing with a cup of coffee in the morning or a home cooked evening meal with friends can make a huge difference to one’s spirit.”

So while it’s definitely related to winter, hygge is expansive -- a simpler, thankful platform from which we progress through our lives, and through which we see ordinary moments as gifts.  I would expect that as one becomes more hyggelige, life suggests ways to be more focused on relationships, eschew materialism, and be healthier.  Which leads me to a Netflix program, Minimalism, I also watched this past weekend.  Although it was overly long and maybe a little preachy, the program also focused on how less can be more, and can enrich life.

Until next time, enjoy the simple pleasures,


Lori

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

A Weekend of Contrasts

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!  

Have we mentioned lately how much we love our Pathfinder Produce patrons, and providing fresh fruits and veggies to area families?  Our markets, held in Edmeston on Thursdays from 1 to 5 p.m., and in Morris on Fridays from noon to 5 p.m. are a real high note of our week.  We really enjoy serving the public in this manner.

We hope you’ll stop by our markets this week to stock up on healthy eats to share with your Valentines!  As always, we encourage everyone to follow our 5210 Wellness goals -- to eat five fruits and veggies each day, reduce recreational screen time to two hours, get an hour of physical activity, and reduce sugary beverages to zero.

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This past weekend, my husband and I went to see my son and his friends compete in the NYS Section 4 Indoor Track & Field Sectionals held at Cornell University.  These indoor meets are very busy, and it’s fun to see all the colorful uniforms from the participating schools.  This meet was huge but well-organized and it went quickly.

All of the students were busy stretching, running, pole vaulting, throwing, hurdling, and of course, doing what teens do best – visiting with friends and having fun.  You could tell that all of these athletes had trained hard.  If their regimens are like my son’s, the athletes spend two hours each day to build strength, endurance, and heart and lung capacity.

As I watched all the warm-ups and events, I was unpleasantly jarred when I caught the strong odor of cigarettes as one man walked by – it was so out of place.  It reminded me of a conversation I’d had earlier that morning on the nefarious marketing of cigarettes in the 50s and 60s.  There were full page ads in magazines, larger than life billboards, TV shows with celebrities smoking incessantly, and romanticized commercials with sophisticated models touting the latest nicotine-delivery system.  In that conversation my husband recalled how the Marlboro Man died from lung cancer; in truth, many of the Marlboro Men actors died from lung or heart disease, attributable to smoking.

Later that night, my son and his friends attended the school’s semi-formal; on the way home, we stopped at a store so he could buy a bottle of water (he was parched).  As I waited, I watched another smoker light up underneath the fluorescent glare of the store awning.  He inhaled deeply, the burnt ashes accumulated in a long gravity-defying cylinder before he flicked them away.  The man was probably in his late 30s – born well after the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report declared smoking a health hazard.  I felt sorry for that smoker, who I guessed would soon be riding down the trail of the Marlboro Man, slowly killing his heart, lungs, and arteries.

So why am I focused on smoking?  As you know, February is American Heart Month, and yet America still has new, young smokers lighting up each year.  According to research:

  • close to 2,500 kids try their first cigarette each day and about 400 kids become regular smokers;
  • it is the number one cause of preventable deaths each year;
  • about $332 billion is spent on tobacco-related diseases and lost productivity each year;
  • and in a 2014 report, the Surgeon General noted “If smoking continues at the current rate among youth in this country, 5.6 million of today’s Americans younger than 18 will die early from a smoking-related illness. That’s about 1 of every 13 Americans aged 17 years or younger alive today. 

Education efforts have helped since 1964, reducing the smoking population from 45 percent of Americans then to about 15 percent now. Yet despite efforts, there are still young smokers being enticed through new forms of marketing, new tobacco products, and messaging in movies and from friends on social networks.  Hopefully, for many of these youngsters, their tobacco use will be a phase and they will turn to healthier ways to engage with peers, like community and school sports, and daily fitness activities, like hiking, jogging and swimming. 

Until next time, love your kids, your own heart & lungs, and be well!

Lori


Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Hoops for Heart at Pathfinder School

My goodness, here we are in February, which is celebrated in the U.S. as American Heart Month.  Here at Pathfinder, we’re focused on cultivating heart health by sharing messages of eating well and encouraging folks to get enough exercise.  Even though great strides have been made in improving cardiac health, the most recent data indicate it remains the leading cause of deaths in the U.S. (2014 statistics). 
In conjunction with our health organization partners, Bassett Healthcare’s 5210 Programs and the Greater Utica Chapter of the American Heart Association, we encourage everyone to take steps to make their hearts stronger and last longer (which is very timely for Valentine’s Day!).  That includes:
  • cutting back on fats, sweets, lots of red meat, and excessive carbs;
  • eating more fresh fruits and veggies each day;
  • encouraging your loved ones to eat better through your example;
  • upping your activity level – an hour a day is optimum, but even 20 minutes of walking each day can make a big difference;
  •  and giving up sweetened sodas and other drinks in favor of water.


Here at Pathfinder Produce, we can help you meet your eating goals … stop by our fresh produce markets this week, Thursdays in Edmeston, 1 to 5 p.m., Fridays in Morris at the UMC, noon to 5 p.m., and discover the variety of healthy foods that can put you on the path to a “heart healthy you.”

Below, in our post from Director of Education Maura Iorio, she speaks about how our Pathfinder School Students are taking charge of their heart health and helping out the American Heart Association.  Enjoy!

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 Pathfinder School’s students, led by Adaptive Physical Education teacher Susan Johnson, are gearing up for their annual Hoops for Heart event! With an emphasis on fun and fitness, students will be learning about ways to stay heart healthy and raise awareness for the American Heart Association.

During the week of February 13th, students will be learning about making good food choices (lots of fruits and veggies!) and different ways that they can stay active throughout the day. On Friday, February 17th our students and staff members will be wearing RED and hitting the basketball court to show off their skills and celebrate all that they learned about heart health.

Our students will also be participating in the official Hoops for Heart fundraiser. All of the money collected will go directly to the American Heart Association to be used for research, education, and community service projects. For more information about Hoops for Heart, please click here

In honor of our upcoming Hoops for Heart event, click here to check out this easy heart healthy idea that’s perfect for a pre- or post-basketball game snack!  We recommend making sure your orange skins are dry before drawing on them, and using non-toxic markers. 

Another idea that you can try is to use baby carrots and black olives to make a healthy veggie tray, like the one pictured to the left.  Other Pinterest images show similar trays with the ball lines delineated with long unpeeled strips of cucumbers.  

Until next time, eat well and love your heart!

Maura (and Lori)