You are what you EAT!

Hey Baker boys and girls! If you check out the link listed “Yikes, strips School lunch?!” you will find some very interesting facts on school lunches and some ugly photos of some high school food! YUCK! We here at Ezra Baker know the value and importance of good nutrition! Thanks to our Farm-to-School Grant, you students have the option of fresh fruits and vegetables every day as well as your hot lunch menu choices and maybe even a SMALL treat! We here at Ezra Baker are very lucky to have such an excellent school nutrition program like Farm-to-School, in place! Remember, you are what you eat! Eating light, fresh foods like fruits, vegetables, and healthy dairy products like eggs and light cheese, are the ingredients to a well-balanced, nutritious diet. These good foods affect your athletic performance and brain performance! Not only will your body be lighter, fitter, and faster, but your mind with be clearer, so you can think faster and workout on those math and reading problems better! If all you eat are junk foods like Cheetos, chips, and candy, well then you’re going to feel heavy, lazy, and slow. You don’t want to feel that way when you are trying to run 2 laps or do a math problem, right?! Right. What did the cave-people eat when they were living? They ate foods that they could hunt and gather. Did they hunt or gather Cheetos or chocolate?! No way! So again, you are what you eat so eat healthy, exercise and play every day, and your brain and body will get quicker and fitter!

It's about the Golf Balls in Life!

I saw this video, which I made the link for to the side on this page and think you will find it of some interest. There are so many things which distract us that its easy to lose your perspective from day to day about what is truly important. Watch the video and DON'T let the "sand" in life fill your life but remember the stuff that matters! Yourself and Your family..... Enjoy

Physical Education...Essential!

Physical Education is key to children's academic learning and life long health!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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Pac-Man Tag-Fun For All!

At Ezra Baker Elementary...All children are included!! We find the value in each child and develop skills to each child's maximum potential!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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Back to School!!!!

Back to School....Soon! School is soon approaching and will be here before you know it! Now is the time to start thinking about your fitness level! Here are some things for you to think about now: Check your BMI level, so that you get an idea where you are now and then during the school year we will have you check yourself again! Remember this is only one tool for you to use and along with other check points, it will give you a picture of your health. Use the links on this blog site to help you! Next, remember the 5-2-1 program and you should check yourself to see if you are eating 5 fruits/vegetables daily, 2 hrs or less of TV/Computer time and 1 hr. of daily physical activity! Start looking now for sales on good running sneakers that give your feet good support! Get physical now so that your body can get ready for running, sweating and conditioning those muscles! Don't wait to start moving in our physical education class because you will find it hard to play many of the games and learn many of the new skills that you will be learning. So, enjoy the summer and make a comment on this blog site should you need any help or advice, I'll be checking this blog for questions! Also, walking daily, as a family unit, does a "body good" and builds those emotional bonds that you will always remember and get that warm fuzzy feeling inside of you! So walk daily and strive for 30 minutes a day of moderate walking, which is at least 3 mph. Until we meet again, enjoy the summer!

Welcome Christen Cevoli to Baker Elementary

Welcome Christen Cevoli!!! It is with great joy and enthusiasm that the Ezra Baker Community welcomes Christen as the new Physical Education teacher replacing Mr. Raudonaitis. Christen was the full time P.E teacher at the M.E. Small school, teaching grades 4 and 5, until the school district changed the grade levels of many schools. We are very fortunate to have her choose to come to Ezra Baker School and help us to develop a curriculum that will help our “kids” to be healthy and develop a life long love of movement. Christen is an experienced professional in the P.E field and will bring to our physical education program her perspective as to what kids need to stay healthy, which will professionally enhance our school and will excite all of the children that she will be working with this fall. Don’t hesitate to introduce your self to Christen as you will find her to be a warm and caring professional who is upbeat and wants all people to enjoy the health benefits that fitness can offer. Again, welcome Christen and I look forward to creating many terrific classes together for our school population. Mr. Fantaroni

Misery Index Medical Conditions and Biggest Killers!!!

The link to this article is on our side page but keeping healthy, we now know, not only keeps us alive longer but our quality of life improves, and we hopefully avoid the misery conditions that can be avoided with moderate daily exercise and good nutrition.  It all matters!
Exercise and eat healthier together as a family and the benefits will last a lifetime.
Bob

“The United States spends more than the rest of the world on health care and leads the world in the quality and quantity of its health research, but that doesn’t add up to better health outcomes,” Murray said in a statement.

One place the U.S. does better – treating some cancers.

“Five-year survival for breast cancer and colorectal cancer are higher in the U.S. than in many OECD countries,” they wrote.

The biggest killers: clogged arteries (known medically as ischemic heart disease), lung cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and road accidents.

Where are people living the longest and shortest lives?

But the diseases that caused the most misery, known in the lingo as disability-adjusted life years, are low back pain, major depressive disorder, other musculoskeletal disorders, neck pain, and anxiety disorders.

In fact, Americans are more disabled now than they were 10 years ago, the researchers found.

“The gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, a measure of the expected number of healthy years that an individual loses to disability—increased from 9.4 to 10.1 years. In other words, individuals in the US are living longer, but not necessarily in good health,” they concluded.

“The United States spends the most per capita on healthcare across all countries, lacks universal health coverage, and lags behind other high-income countries for life expectancy and many other health outcome measures. High costs with mediocre population health outcomes at the national level are compounded by marked disparities across communities, socio-economic groups, and race and ethnicity groups.”

One underlying cause is poor diet. “The most important dietary risks in the U.S. are a diet low in fruits, low in nuts and seeds, high in sodium, high in processed meats, low in vegetables and high in transfats,” they wrote.

"For the first time we're saying that the composition of diet, which is made up 14 different components, things like fruits, grains, nuts, seeds (and) other aspects of diet being analyzed is the biggest determinant of health in the US, followed by smoking, followed by obesity, and then followed by high blood sugar and physical inactivity," Murray told NBC news.

"So if you put all of those together there's huge potential to improve health in the U.S. and in fact get ahead of other high income countries if we were to address these modifiable risks."

First Lady Michelle Obama said the report shows communities and policymakers need to help Americans eat better. "We’re going to be working with food companies and restaurants who are offering more healthy options to families so that when they go into a restaurant they have some decent choices," she said at an event at the White House for her "Let's Move" campaign.

But Dr. Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, who chaired a National Academy of Sciences panel that reported on U.S. health in January, says it’s more complex than just bad habits.