The 5 to 9-A-Day Challenge

March is National Nutrition Month (http://www.eatright.org/Public/NutritionInformation/92_11422.cfm), a nutrition education and information campaign sponsored annually by the American Dietetic Association, which is designed to focus attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. See this website for helpful factsheets, nutrition quizzes, and information on labels and healthy eating on the run. March 7-11 is also National School Breakfast Week. See these websites (http://www.schoolnutrition.org/, http://www.asfsa.org/nsbw/) for campaign ideas and fun and healthy breakfast selections.

As we prepare for a fit spring and summer, we ask you to take the 5 to 9-a-day challenge. Challenge yourself to eat 7 servings of fruits and vegetables if you are female and 9 servings if you are a male every day. See recipes and healthy nutritional choices at www.5aday.gov.

Samples of fruit and vegetable serving sizes are: one cup of raw leafy vegetables, a ½ cup chopped strawberries, or one piece of fruit. It's easy to eat 5 servings per day! For example, make a salad with two cups of leafy vegetables, add strawberries to your breakfast cereal, snack on two medium-sized pieces of fruit instead of candy bars or chips, and you have eaten your 5 to 9 servings! For more information on serving sizes, check out http://www.5aday.gov/what/index.html. It is fun and easy to eat your 5 to 9-a-day; try it this March and report your successes to NCPAD at jegray@uic.edu. We'll send you a NCPAD pen.

Educate yourself on serving sizes; they are not as large as you might think. A serving is defined as a predetermined amount of food, and is one slice of bread, one ounce of ready-to-eat cereal, a ½ cup of cooked cereal, rice, or pasta. Sensible serving sizes look like a pair of dice for one ounce of cheese; a checkbook for three ounces of fish; and a ping pong ball for two tablespoons of peanut butter. For more information, check out the NCPAD fact sheet, "Estimating Serving Sizes" at http://www.ncpad.org/nutrition/fact_sheet.php?sheet=91.

Please send your comments and feedback to Valerie Lawson at vlawson@uic.edu.

This fact sheet was last updated on 07-21-2006.

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