Podcast: Bringing Healthy Living to America’s Schools

The following post and podcast first appeared in the How I’m Doing It blog for Experience Life magazine. Read my original April 2014 magazine article here, in the How I’m Doing It column.

By Courtney Opdahl (@clewisopdahl)

After reading Melanie Kadlic Meren’s story on how she’s working to integrate healthy living within her own family, I was curious to learn more about her work with public schools. As a former employee with the US Department of Education, Melanie shifted to consultant work when she was pregnant with her first child, and has been influencing educational organizations in creating healthy programs through her company, MKM Strategies, based near our nation’s capital. We had a chance to catch up over the phone recently, and Melanie shared her insights on programs that are working well, what could use improvement, and what you can do to help.

Listen to the podcast for more, and find helpful links from Melanie below. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• “Make Health Last. What will your last 10 years look like?” by the Heart & Stroke Foundation (video)
• Renegade Lunch Lady, Chef Ann Cooper, director of nutritional services at Boulder Valley School District in Colorado. Tedx Talk here, and listen in to the Experience Life podcast with Chef Cooper here. (Read more in the EL piece, “Can School Lunch Be Saved?”)
• Partnership for a Healthier America works with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation’s youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis.
• The Silver Diner, a locavore-focused restaurant group in the D.C. area.
• Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together and a Ted2012 talk speaker on how technology makes us feel lonely and fragments our community while it simultaneously keeps us forever tethered and sedentary.
• Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time by award-winning journalist Brigid Schulte is a new, best-selling book about time pressure and modern life.
• Maxed Out by Katrina Alcorn is her memoir of trying to have it all, and what happened once she realized she couldn’t.
• Bentley University’s Center for Women & Business Report on “Advancing Women in the Workplace,”which offers guidance for businesses, women, and public-policy makers on how to make the workplace more hospitable for women, and ultimately, families.
• National Park Service’s Healthy Parks Healthy People initiative, which connects people to parks to promote holistic health and wellness.
• NoVA Outside, a regional alliance of outdoor educators in Northern Virginia.
• Earth Force engages young people as active citizens who improve the environment and their communities now and in the future.
• Green Schools Alliance, which connects and empowers pre-K–12 schools worldwide to lead the transformation to global sustainability.
• Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation promotes awareness of the importance of sustainability education and helps schools and school districts make sustainability an ongoing part of education — particularly by offering teachers professional development and curriculum development support.
• National Environmental Education Foundation is the nation’s leading organization in lifelong environmental learning, connecting people to knowledge they use to improve the quality of their lives and the health of the planet.