• Discuss briefly that planning healthful snacks may help play a role in slowing the rise in obesity in the community.In many neighborhoods, nearly 50% of parents and kids are overweight due to unhealthy eating and lack of physical activity. Also, suggest that preparing healthful snacks can be a fun way for parents and kids to spend time together.

• Suggest nutritious snacking can be easy to do. Refer parents to the healthy snacking information in the brochure (odd numbered pages). Explain that it is based on the 8 Habits of Healthy Kids^®. The information will help provide many practical no-recipe snack ideas.

• Suggest nutritious snacks can be delicious. Refer parents to the healthy snack recipes in the brochure (even numbered pages). Explain these are (1) all from real parents, (2) they've been reviewed by nutrition experts so they're nutritious, and (3) they've been taste-tested by kids-so they're tasty.

Information Pages
• Highlight the key information from each of the information pages, one Habit at a time.

• Summarize the information from first paragraph on each page. For example, for Habit 1, you could say: “It's important we all get 2 cups of fruit and 2 cups of veggies
every day. That's about 5 cups daily.”

• Ask others to share snack ideas they have for meeting this Habit.
For example, for Habit 1, start off the discussion by sharing one of your personal tips, such as: “My kids and I love to visit the farmers' market and try a new or unusual fruit for snacking.”

• For each Habit, point to a few tips that you think are particularly interesting for your group. For example, for Habit 1, you could point to: “Stick grapes and low-fat cheddar cheese cubes on toothpicks.” Suggest why you like that tip, or if you've tried that tip. If possible, bring in a few toothpicks, grapes and low-fat cheddar cheese cubes to show parents how easy/fun it is to do.

•  Review the recipes for each Habit. Note something unique about each recipe and the kid's quote. For example, for Habit 1, you could say: “This cool apple salad has 3 food groups; Gabriela from LA says it's yummy!”

•  Repeat this process for each of the information pages (1,3, 5,7, 9, 11,13).

Fun Things
• Conduct a mini-cooking demonstration of one of the snack recipes during or after the specific Habit discussion. This can be the snack for the group.