Don't be a couch potato -- click on the 'Introducing myNutratek' Web site for helpful tips

Many "Talking Taylor Schools" readers click in through the Taylor School District Web site -- or one of the TSD individual school sites. One thing you might be missing while you're there are the system's "Points Of Pride," featured in the lower middle of the TSD home page.

If you go there, you'll find plenty of interesting links, from the TSD in and out of district school of choice program, NCA accreditation, Virtual Learning Academy, Alumni Association, TPS Foundation for Educational Excellence, Taylor Reading Corps and Reward School rankings. 

But one that might mean the most to you is the "Introducing myNutratek" link, which helps track nutrition, fitness, moods and weight. This is a link to a Web site that every parent in the school district should visit.

MyNutratek was started through one dedicated family's personal journey. Founder and CEO Tim Codd saw the pain in his daughter's eye -- and then he saw the issues in the lunch room. The moment turned into a family quest, and two years later, the program started changing lives.

What Codd discovered was that any sustainable shift in a child's behavior usually came for two specific reasons: Incentives and/or consequences. The myNutratek program provides both issues as driving points that embrace the educational environment while providing accountability through reporting and monitoring.

So what's it all about? MyNutratek targets student wellness by assisting parents, teachers and children record both eating and physical activity. That way, they can correlate behavior with United State Department of Agriculture recommendations.

Those involved in the program receive immediate feedback on successes; knowledge through nutritional analysis; draws a correlation between physical activity and weight management; offers an understanding of the Body Mass Index; offers how daily food choices align with the MyPlate program; and rewards students for their hard work.

A quick surf of the TSD myNutratek Web site offers some very interesting tools and resources.

The mySources page includes links to a myNutratek handout, wellness statistics video and link to a Jonas Jerebko Blog about myNutratek. Jerebko is a Detroit Pistons' forward.

Other resources include health assessment tools, top school environments, top nutrition sites, top physical activities, top education and wellness links and a link to the Michigan Department of Community Health.

The myDistrict tab takes you to TSD food services including personnel, links and phone numbers.

MyCookbooks can be a fun page in and of itself, offering digital cookbooks on artificial sweetener recipes, low fat recipes and -- most importantly -- low fat snack recipes like two different kinds of Oyster Cracker snacks, a snack mix (with and without pretzels) and a wheat-cheese version.

With all the serious facts about nutrition, myPlayground offers a neat diversion. There, students (or adults) can play some related activities like a digital coloring book, Invasion of the Couch Potatoes, Fruit Frenzy, etc.

Take a moment and surf through the TSD myNutratek Web site by clicking here.

Adults should take note of the Michigan Health & Wellness Assessment Quiz, registration, etc. under the "Latest Info" tab on the home page.

Childhood obesity has more and doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past three decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The percentage of children 6-11 in the U.S. nearly tripled from 1980 to 2010. By 2010, more than one-third of the children and adolescents were overweight or obese.

Why? Because of a "caloric imbalance" caused by too many calories being consumed and not enough being expended.

So don't be a couch potato and get with the program now!