Resources/Tools
Start a Healthy Journey With Us
If you want to upgrade your lifestyle by improving your diet and exercise routine, reducing your stress and improving your sleep we can help you with your journey to better health. At FORWARD DuPage, you can find some of the best information and guidance available for obesity prevention and leading a healthy lifestyle.
Choose Your Plan
With a healthy diet and practicing mindfulness, you can achieve your health goal. Please browse the tabs below to discover downloadable resources, obesity facts and information, and other external links that will help keep you in the know about the obesity pandemic and the strides that are being made toward achieving healthy and active lifestyles for all.
The Whole Body Approach (Benedictine University) - This approach aims to encourage individuals to shift their ideas of health away from calculated ideas of food, physical activity, and bodies and towards mindfulness, intuitive eating, enjoyable movement, and body acceptance. These videos will help you:
-Set realistic wellness goals.
-Discover new ways to develop a healthy relationship with food.
-Identify ways to enjoy physical activity without having to 'exercise' or break your daily routine.
-Navigate social cues so they do not lead to unhealthy eating behaviors.
-Enjoy life as we move towards overall health and stop focusing on weight loss.
Introduction to The Whole Body Approach
Developing a Healthy Relationship with Food
Enjoyable Movement
Practicing Mindfulness
Every Body is a Good Body
Talking Back to Negative Thoughts
You Can Manage Stress
Make Social Cues Work for You
FORWARD DuPage would like to encourage DuPage County residents to rethink their drinks and choose water or low-calorie options over the high-calorie sugary drinks. Sugary drinks are the number one source of added sugar in our diet and are strongly linked to chronic disease and obesity.
Metabolic Syndrome
Metabolic Syndrome ties together a host of disorders that the medical community typically considers unrelated, or at least having separate and distinct causes. The Syndrome includes: weight gain (obesity), high blood pressure (hypertension), high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol (dyslipidemia), heart disease (atherosclerosis), high blood sugar (diabetes), and inflammation - as products of insulin resistance and high circulating insulin levels (hyperinsulinemia). It’s a kind of homeostatic disruption in which regulatory systems throughout the body are misbehaving with slow, chronic, pathological consequences everywhere.
Other Resources
Early Childhood Monthly Newsletters
Tip Sheets
- Benefits of Family Style Dining and Best Practices for Mealtime Conversations
- Building a Healthy Immune System to Ward Off Covid-19 and Other Viruses.
- Celebrate Healthy
- Getting to 120 Minutes of Physical Activity Each Day.
- How to Have Those Tough Conversations with Parents About Their Child's Health and Weight.
- Full and hungry: Helping Children Regulate Their Own Food Intake.
- Nutrition and Physical Activity: Educational Opportunities for Families.
- Visible Classroom Support for Healthy Eating and Physical Activity.
Other Resources
- FORWARD DuPage Parent/Family Healthy Lifestyle Resources
- 54321 Go Lesson Plans
- Childhood Obesity in DuPage County
- Healthy Kids, Healthy Future
- Nutrition And Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (NAP SACC)
- Go NAPSACC: Self Assessments Materials
- Healthy Way to Grow - American Heart Association
- Preventing Childhood Obesity in Early Care and Education Programs
- Nutrition & Wellness Tips for Young Children: Provider Handbook for the Child & Adult Care Food Program - USDA
- Tummy™ Nutrition Program
- MyPlate - US Department of Agriculture
- fiveSMART®
- Ways to Enhance Children's Activity & Nutrition - We Can!
- Illinois Farm to School
- Go, Slow Whoa - We Can!
- Kits for Kids - Northwestern Medicine
- Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Breastfeeding Guidance
- Training Modules for Family Support Staff
- Illinois Breastfeeding Virtual Support Videos
- Early Childhood Monthly Newsletters
- Learning Readiness P.E. Ted Talk
- 54321 Go Lesson Plans
- Childhood Obesity in DuPage County
- Let's Move! Schools
- WellSAT 3.0 Policy Assessment Tool
- School Health Index (SHI) Assessment- Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
- Nutrition and Physical Activity Free School Programming
- Healthy Schools Program - Alliance for a Healthier Generation
- Healthy Schools- Center for Disease Control & Prevention
- The Learning Connection - Action for Healthy Kids
- Tools for Schools - Action for Healthy Kids
- Nutrition and Wellness - Illinois State Board of Education
- Non - Food Rewards - Action for Healthy Kids
- Sample Wellness Policies- U.S. Department of Agriculture
- Illinois Farm to School
- Healthy Schools Campaign
- MyPlate - U.S. Department of Agriculture
- Go, Slow Whoa- We Can!
- Benefit of Fitness, P.E., and Recess in Schools - Dr. Chuck Hillman
- Weigh In: Talking to Your Children about Weigh & Health - Alliance for a Healthier Generation
- Understanding a School Community's Readiness for Adopting a New Idea & Strategies for Taking Action - University of Alberta
- Kits for Kids - Northwestern Medicine
Tips Sheets for Healthy Celebrations
- Creating a Healthier Worksite - Vermont Department of Public Health
- Worksite Health ScoreCard - Center for Disease Control & Prevention
- Worksite Health 101 Training Manual - Center for Disease Control & Prevention
- Healthy Meeting Toolkit - Center for Science in the Public Interest
- HealthWorks Workbook - Kaiser Permanente
- Worksite Wellness Resource Guide - Illinois Alliance to Prevent Obesity (IAPO)
- ReThink Your Drink - Illinois Alliance to Prevent Obesity (IAPO)
- Health Achievement Index Recognition - American Heart Association
- Healthy Workplace Food and Beverage Toolkit - American Heart Association
- Workplace Health: What Millennials Want - ROC Group/Detroit Regional Chamber
- Mayors' Challenge for Safer People, Safer Streets - U.S. Department of Transportation
- Childhood obesity in DuPage County.
- Let's Move! Mayors & Local Officials
- Let's Move! Cities, Towns, and Counties Guide
- Evidence-Based Best Practices for Treatment & Prevention of Obesity for Municipalities
- 5-4-3-2-1 Go!®
- Complete Streets Policy Implementation - Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning
- Active Transportation Alliance
- Seven Generation Ahead
- DuMore in DuPage - DuPage County Convention & Visitor Bureau
- Trail Map - DuPage Forest Preserve
- Farmer’s Markets - GardenWorks Project
- Fox Valley Sustainability Network
- National Association of State Park Directors - Health and Nature Program Partnership Toolkit
- Change Talk
- 2020 Illinois to Prevent Obesity Annual Virtual Meeting
- 5-4-3-2-1 Go!®
- Childhood Obesity in DuPage County
- Let's Move! Health Care Providers
- Practitioner's Guide for Themed Follow-Up Visits for Their Patients to Achieve a Healthy Weight - American Academy of Pediatrics
- Why Weight? A Guide to Discussing Obesity & Health with Your Patients - Strategies to Overcome & Prevent (STOP) Obesity Alliance
- FamilyPower: A Referral-Based Pediatric Obesity Treatment Program that Connects Clinic to Family - National Academy of Medicine
- Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound - Nationwide Children's Hospital
- MyPlate - U.S. Department of Agriculture
- Go, Slow, Whoa - We Can!
- The Healthy Eating Plate - Harvard School of Public Health
- ChopChop - Cooking Magazine for Families
- Motivational Interviewing Tools
- Know the Big 5 - Illinois Public Health Institute
- ACLS Heart Healthy Guide to Preventing Obesity - Pacific Medical Training
- Childhood Obesity Prevention and Management
- Childhood Obesity in DuPage County
- Let's Move! Parents
- Families Finding the Balance: A Parent Handbook from Ways to Enhance Children's Activity & Nutrition - We Can!
- Parent Tip Sheets - We Can!
- Fitness & Nutrition in College - Affordable Colleges Online
- 5-4-3-2-1 Go!®
-
MyPlate
- Tips for Eating Healthy
Food Pantries Can Make the Healthy Choice the Easy Choice
Grow a Food Security Garden
Identify Children at Risk for Food Insecurity
Sample Nutrition Policies