Healthy Eating

Children's Literature

The strength of this book is the good, practical advice it gives teenagers about how to incorporate healthy eating into their lives. One way it does this is by giving anecdotes to illustrate various points. Nicole learns to eat healthy snacks to keep her going all day. Chi-I changes his diet after he finds out he has high cholesterol. Rachel and Adam keep healthy snacks in their locker so they won't be tempted by the vending machines at school. The book covers the essentials of nutrition, including digestion, nutrients, and the importance of a balanced diet. It also addresses more complex nutrition issues, such as dieting, eating disorders, and the impact that friends and family can have on attitudes about food. The layout features a lot of variety, including color sidebars, discussion questions, nutrition myths and facts, and photographs of ethnically diverse teenagers. This helps keep the book interesting. Part of the "Perspectives on Physical Health" series. 2000, Capstone Press, $22.60. Ages 12 to 18. Reviewer: Emily Schuster

School Library Journal

Gr 6 Up-These series entries contain basic but germane information. Graves describes the connection between exercise and fitness as well as how to overcome the obstacles, both internal and external, to achieving it. In a concluding chapter, the author describes the four steps of a workout and emphasizes the role of a healthy diet, adequate water intake, and a varied routine to achieve fitness. Healthy Eating begins with an explanation of the process of digestion and a description of the six major nutrients, followed by a discussion of the short- and long-term effects of poor nutrition and how knowledge of dietary guidelines can help teenagers make wise food choices. One chapter deals with issues of weight, diet, and eating disorders. The author also discusses how friends, family, fast food, and the media influence eating habits. In Premenstrual Syndrome, Gregson is careful to distinguish symptoms of PMS from those that might occur during the actual menstrual period. She emphasizes the ways in which girls can identify and track their own symptoms in an effort to find ways to alleviate their severity. She stresses healthy lifestyle changes and lists traditional as well as nontraditional treatments as courses of action. These titles include a considerable amount of additional information in attractive graphic sidebars. Uncaptioned generic photographs and charts appear throughout. The books are logically organized and clearly written and would be useful for personal perusal or in basic research.-Sylvia V. Meisner, Allen Middle School, Greensboro, NC Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|