Wellness Page

Mission Statement

To originate and promote wellness related priorities in the areas of student/parent/staff wellness including nutrition, physical activity, and emotional health.

Committee Members

This is a committee that is comprised of several different backgrounds and interests. All have unique perspectives and talents.

They include:


Parent Wellness Survey


2019-2020 PDE WELLNESS ASSESSMENT

2023-2024 PDE WELLNESS ASSESSMENT

Wellness Policy

If you would like to review the Wellness Policy please go to the district website and look under District Info------School Board------School Board Documents-----Under chool board documents you will see Elk Lake School District Policies.  The Wellness Policy is listed as number 246.

Helpful Hints

The following information is from  www.cspinet.org/ healthysnacks / .

Serving healthy snacks to children is important to providing good nutrition, supporting lifelong healthy eating habits, and helping to prevent costly and potentially- disabling diseases, such as heart disease, cancer , diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity. Snacks play a major and growing role in children's diets.

Below are ideas to help with sending students to school with healthy snacks.

Fruits and Vegetables

Serving fresh fruits and vegetables can seem challenging. However, good planning and the growing number of shelf- stable fruits and vegetable products on the market make it easier. Though some think fruits and vegetables are costly snacks, they are actually less costly than many other less- healthful snacks on a per-serving basis. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average cost of a serving of fruit or Vegetable (all types- fresh, frozen, and canned) is 25 cents per serving. This is a good deal compared with a 69 - cent single- serve bag of potato chips or an 80-cent candy bar.

Fruit

Fruit is naturally sweet, so most kids love it. Fruit can be served whole, sliced, cut in half, cubed, or in wedges. Canned, frozen, and dried fruits often need little preparation.

• Apples

• Apricots

• Bananas

• Blueberries

• Cantaloupe

• Cherries

• Grapefruit

• Grapes(red, green or purple)

• Honeydew Melon

 • Kiwis( cut in half and give child a spoon)

• Mangoes

• Oranges

• Peaches

• Pears

• Pineapple

• Plums

• Strawberries

• Watermelon

Applesauce (unsweetened) Fruit cups, and Canned Fruit- These have a long shelf life and are low-cost, easy, and healthy if canned in juice or light syrup. Examples of unsweetened applesauce include Mott's Natural Style and Mott's Healthy Harvest line. Dole and Del Monte offer a variety of single-serve fruit bowls.

Dried Fruit- Try raisins, apricots, apples, cranberries, pineapple, papaya, and others with little or no added sugars.

Vegetable

Vegetables can be served raw with dip or salad dressing.

• Broccoli

• Carrot Sticks or Baby Carrots

• Cauliflower

• Celery Sticks

• Cucumber

• Peppers( green, red, or yellow)

• Snap Peas

• String Beans

• Tomato Slices or Grape Tomato

• Squash Slices

• Zucchini Slices

Dips

Try low-fat salad dressings, like fat-free Ranch or Thousand Island, store-bought light dips, bean dips, guacamole, hummus (which comes in dozens of flavors), salsa or peanut butter.

Soy-Edamame (pronounced "eh-dah-MAH-may") are fun to eat and easy to serve.

Ants on a log- Spread peanut butter on celery and add raisins

Grains

Though most kids eat plenty of grain products, too many of those grains are cookies, snack cakes, sugary cereals, Rice Krispy Treats, and other refined grains that are high in sugars or fat. Try to serve mostly whole grains, which provide more fiber, vitamins, and minerals than refined grains. In addition, try to keep the added sugars to less than 35% by weight and the saturated and trans fat low (i.e., less than 10% of calories, or about one gram per serving)

Breakfast cereal Dry-Whole grain cereals like Cheerios, Grape-Nuts, Raisin Bran, Frosted Mini Wheats, and Wheaties make good snacks. Look for cereals with no more than 35% added sugars by weight (or roughly 8 grams of sugar per serving.)

Crackers- Whole-grain crackers like Triscuits, which come in different flavors or thin crisp( or similar woven wheat crackers), Kalvi Rye crackers, or whole wheat Matzos can be served alone or with toppings, like low-fat cheese, peanut butter, or low-fact, reduced-sodium luncheon meat.

Rice Cakes- Look for rice cakes made from brown whole grain rice. They come in many flavors, and can be served with or without toppings

Popcorn- Look for low-fat popcorn in a bag or microwave popcorn. You can also air pop the popcorn and season it (example spray it with vegetable oil and add parmesan cheese, garlic powder, or other non- salt spices).

Granola Bars- Look for whole grain granola bars that are low in fat and sugars, like Barbara's Granola Bars, Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars, Nature Valley Chewy Trail Mix Bars and Quaker Chewy Granola Bars.

Pretzels- This low fat item can be offered as a snack now and then. However, pretzels are usually not whole grain and are high in salt.