What is kids cook monday?

The Kids Cook Monday is a national public health initiative to encourage families to create
a weekly habit of cooking and eating with their kids. The goal is to promote healthy eating
habits by increasing children’s cooking skills, knowledge of the nutritional value of food and
the importance of portion control. And since the family that cooks together eats together, it’ll
spend valuable time together, which has added benefits.

Why bother?
Nearly 32 percent of U.S. children aged 2–19 are
overweight or obese, which puts them at risk of a
host of serious heath conditions, such as type 2
diabetes and cardiovascular disease. These are
being diagnosed at increasing rates in adolescents
and young adults. Research shows that kids who
regularly eat dinner with their family are less likely
to be obese and are more likely to get better
grades and avoid drugs. The Kids Cook Monday
is also a great way that communities can support
Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to
reverse the alarming increase in childhood obesity
rates.

How will the pilot program work?

The Monday Campaigns Inc., Teachers College, Center for Food and Environment and the
Harlem Health Promotion Center will launch a pilot program that brings together families
from the Harlem community to learn to cook healthy, inexpensive, delicious and heart-
healthy meals together. Graduate students will lead these hands-on classes at Teachers
College every Monday from 6-8pm and share educational materials with kid-friendly recipes,
cooking tips and conversations starters to help parents talk with their kids about sensitive
issues. Teachers College will build in an evaluation component that tracks the success of the
program in enhancing knowledge about healthy diets, creating healthy eating habits among
participants and improving parent-child communication about health. The program will then
be offered nationally to parents, schools and communities wishing to start their own The Kids
Cook Monday program.

1 Anderson SE, Whitaker RC. Household Routines and Obesity in US Preschool-Aged Children. Pediatrics 2010

2 Califano JA, CASA Board of Directors, Survey conducted by QEV Analytics. The Importance of Family Dinners. The National Center
on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University 2003
Who’s behind it?
The Monday Campaigns Inc. is a non-profit public health organization founded in 2005
in association with Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health and Syracuse Newhouse School of Public Communications. Its goal
is to end chronic preventable disease in the U.S. by offering people a weekly prompt that
can help them start and sustain healthy behaviors. Its first campaign, Meatless Monday,
has grown into an international movement with celebrities, restaurants, schools, cities and
countries joining together to cut out meat once a week for personal health and the health of
the planet.

The Harlem Health Promotion Center is an initiative of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Its mission is
to serve as a collaboration of community, academic and public health stakeholders that uses
research, education, advocacy and service delivery to improve the health and well-being of
the Harlem community.

The Center for Food & Environment at Teachers College is one of the nation’s
leading research and education centers. As part of the Program in Nutrition at Teachers
College Columbia University, the faculty at the Center engages in some of the most pressing
societal concerns related to personal health as well as environmental sustainability. Their
research is translated into educational materials and outreach to empower individuals,
schools, and communities to take charge and act on interrelated social problems from
childhood obesity to food system sustainability.

If you would like to get involved please contact:

info@TheKidsCookMonday.org

www.TheKidsCookMonday.com