Photo: natalielucier, Flickr

So you signed up for a yoga class -- good for you! But exactly how qualified is your instructor to lead the class?

As yoga's popularity started to climb, a voluntary registry was created by Yoga Alliance to ensure that schools met certain standards for training instructors. The list was certainly a good idea; a way to make sure instructors were properly trained and could conduct classes effectively and safely. The registry eventually listed nearly 1,000 schools across the U.S.

That voluntary list, however, is now being used as a target for government regulation of yoga schools. Some states, including New York, Virginia and Michigan, have made strides towards requiring schools on the list to become certified by the state. Those that do not become state-certified will have to pay hefty fines or cease operation.

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When I look at the lunch menu for my son's school, I feel safe in assuming that any kid who brings a lunch from home is getting better nutrition. After all, it's not hard to beat chicken nuggets and greasy pizza. But home-packed lunches aren't always the better deal.

Due to rising food costs, regulations for Texas day-care centers recently changed and now allow the centers to require parents to send meals and snacks for the children. A subsequent (albeit small) study found that 71 percent of the home-packed meals didn't have enough fruits or vegetables and the number of milk servings was also low.

When you're busy getting the kids ready for school and trying to get ready for work, sometimes convenience takes priority when packing your kids lunches. But nutrition can be convenient, too. You can't get much easier than a ready-to-eat piece of fruit. And you can pre-cut carrots, celery, cucumbers and other veggies at the beginning or the week so they're ready and waiting. Check out the gallery for other quick, easy and healthful foods for your child's lunch bag.

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Imagine a world where there were no vending machines lurking around every corner, tempting you and your family members with sugary, unwholesome junk. Imagine a world in which your kids ate the healthy fruits and veggies you packed in a brown paper bag with care, instead of chucking them in the nearest garbage bin and punching in some buttons on the nearest machine to score a bag of chips or candy bar.

Sounds like a world I'd like to live in -- what about you? But would it work out how we imagine, or would the kids just find other ways to satisfy their junky tastes?

A study from the Journal Of Nutrition shows that if vending machines weren't allowed in school, kids would eat more healthfully. I guess that's not really too surprising -- if kids are hungry enough, they'll eat what they're given -- but now that there are some official-sounding statistics on this, hopefully the vending machine will start to die a slow and painful death.

(via Calorie Lab.)

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Kids learn a lot in school. My fifth grader is learning algebra and geometry, which is fine now but I'm a little leery of the math lessons he'll have in high school -- at some point he's going to surpass my knowledge completely. So with all that reading, writing and arithmetic, why not learn good nutrition habits as well?

Many schools are starting to restrict sugary and fatty snacks. And students' nutrition habits are modestly improving as a result. Over 10,000 fifth graders at schools with restricted snacks were surveyed and they reported a three percent increase in fruit and vegetable consumption.

As a parent, I strongly believe my child's nutrition habits are learned at home. But when good nutrition habits are modeled and supported at school as well, it's a win-win situation. Now if I could only convince my son's school to stop serving those molded chunks of who-knows-what they try to pass off as chicken nuggets.

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Kids + soda = bad combination. It's a formula that's accepted pretty much worldwide, considering that soda is made up of everything that is bad for you and your offspring. Banning soda from schools is one way to get it away from children and teens, but does it work?

Nope, says a recent study published in USA Today. Apparently, kids who go to schools without readily-available soft drinks consume just as much of them as kids who do have soda in their schools. There's is a silver lining to this cloud, however -- overall, all kids are consuming less soda, on average.

I think this goes to show that ultimately, it's up to the parents to teach healthy habits to their kids. What do you think?

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Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been trying to make a difference in the nutritional quality of the UK's school lunches for years. Now, Oliver is focusing on another area that needs improvement -- the typical British home. He worries that the tough economic times are further degrading the quality of food served at home.

When Oliver was first zeroing in on school lunches and teaching cafeteria workers to prepare fresher, more nutritious meals, he didn't just encounter resistance from kids. In one South Yorkshire town, cameras caught parents of school children shoving burgers and fries at their kids through the school's fence. So now Oliver is working in that town and trying to teach families how to eat healthfully on a tight budget.

Oliver makes a good point: Historically, when money was tight, people had to become more resourceful -- growing their own produce, using cheaper cuts of meat, and so forth. Now, however, people have the option of buying $0.79 boxes of macaroni and cheese or value meals at fast food joints. Have you seen that recent commercial for KFC? The one that challenges people to buy the ingredients for a bucket of chicken for less than they'll sell it to you? That's just the point the Oliver is making -- when convenience and cost pair together, some people will let nutrition slide.

If you're trying to lower your grocery costs, try these tips for eating healthfully on a budget.

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Proper nutrition (or lack thereof) in schools s a hot topic these days -- parents, teachers, celebs and even some health-conscious kids are fed up with the amount of junk food available and the amount of healthy food not available in places of education -- so much so that they're doing something about it.

Take the Los Angeles Unified School District -- years ago, they bought a TS4 Sushi Robot with the intention of getting kids to eat healthier. Now they're finally putting it to use at Santee Educational Complex. The machine will be used for educational purposes in culinary classes, and the sushi produced will be featured in the school's student restaurant.

It's too bad the machine wasn't used sooner, but it's great that healthy sushi will be made more available to these kids. Maybe every school should have a sushi robot -- and a salad robot, a whole-grain sandwich robot, a fresh fruit and veggies robot ... well, you get the picture.

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South Korea has seen the obesity rate of children triple in the last three years, and the country isn't content to sit back and watch that number grow along with the children's waistlines. The country is planning to offer money to schools whose students' BMI indicate obesity.

The students won't be able to use that money for more sweets. Instead, the schools will give the students vouchers that can only be used in particular places, like, apparently, the gym.

You might wonder why the government wants to pay schools with unhealthily heavy students -- I know I did. According to the ministry, childhood obesity-related costs to the government and the economy in 2006 were $2 trillion (yes, with a "t"), so giving the schools money to fight this trend is truly cost effective. What do you think?

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It was back-to-school for New York students this week, but there was a new policy in place. This year, a new policy went into effect, and students are being weighed as part of their health certificate. The data will enable health officials to map childhood overweight and obesity trends based on location.

There are 12 other states -- Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia -- with some form of student BMI reporting.

As a parent, I'm not overtly opposed to it. In fact, I remember getting weighed in gym class and during all of my physicals in order to play school sports. I do have a couple of concerns, though. I would hope that student privacy is maintained and their weight isn't being taken in a line where all the kids could see the number on the scale. I would also hope that health and a positive body image is being promoted -- the self esteem of children can be a fragile thing and I hope it's being protected.

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I remember back when I was in high school (what my son would call the "olden days"). When my friends and I finally scored drivers licenses and cheap used cars, we smelled freedom. Almost every day we'd escape the school's cafeteria and go out to lunch. We wouldn't go home or bring healthy, packed lunches to an off-campus spot to eat. Instead, we'd hit one of the fast-food joints downtown. It was a terrible habit to get into -- unhealthy and expensive.

Not too many years from now, my son will have the same freedom. We live practically next door to the local junior high and high school. I hope, when he has the freedom to leave school grounds at lunch, he opts to come home more often than not. I'd rather have him leave fast-food as an occasional treat, and choose healthful foods more regularly. (Though, if he brings home several teenage friends for lunch, my grocery bills will skyrocket!)

I just read an article which proves that students going out to lunch is a health decision parents and schools worry about around the globe. Short of preventing high school students from leaving the school campus, all we can do is teach our kids the importance of good nutrition from a young age. Then, hopefully, when they're old enough to do so, they make good choices.

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The American public ban on smoking has been one of the most successful citizen-led public health campaigns of all time. Think a similar-type ban on cupcakes might catch on?

There's a growing movement out there, spurred by a law requiring schools to alter the nutrition of its students, to help kids eat cleaner, healthier diets. The latest manifestation of this obesity panic comes in the form of a cupcake ban in some Chicago schools. That's right. There will be no cupcakes at a handful of holiday parties across the Chicago region. Parents are asked, instead, to bring veggie trays in lieu of sweets and water rather than juice boxes.

I like this idea. Some don't.

"To believe that denying a couple of cupcakes during the Holiday season is going to make a difference in a child's overall nutrition is idiotic," writes the author of this editorial. "The Holidays are a time for celebration. And for generations of American kids, that celebration has taken the form of treats at school, shared in a true spirit of Christmas, with their friends and classmates."

Banning cupcakes only destroys the notion that holidays are special, says this man. What do you say?

12 "healthy" foods that really aren't:

Why? Click to find out!

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Are school kids really wanting to eat those processed, nutrition-deplete meals served at lunch every day? Perhaps not, according to a new study.

When given the choice, a new study from Minnesota says that school lunch sales don't really decline when healthy lunches are served to students.

In addition, healthier lunches don't necessarily cost schools more to produce, contract to popular belief.

If that is so, why don't more schools serve healthy breakfasts and lunches? That's the mystery -- one that I hope is solved nationwide soon.

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As we reported a few days ago, former president Bill Clinton is declaring war against obesity. And there's a specific target he's aiming at -- Soda in Schools. Clinton wants sugary soda to be out of schools by 2010. According to this article on Forbes, Clinton met with soda company representatives and medical experts to forge a deal.

Here's what you will be able to get in schools after the change:

• In elementary and middle schools: water, unsweetened juice and low-fat milk
• In high schools: diet drinks, unsweetened teas, flavored water, and low-calorie sports drinks.

This seems fair, I suppose--It would be ideal if kids would stick to water but that's not very realistic if you ask me. Still, soda companies can continue to profit from schools but supplying them low-cal drinks that are still full of chemicals and lacking in any real nutritional value. And what about those chips in the vending machine -- are they going bye-bye too?

What do you think?

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With teenage pregnancies in the U.S. on the media's front burner once again, a recent poll showed that a majority of parents favor schools providing students with birth control methods.

However, there were differences in the way some responded to the poll that gave insight into divisional-type thinking on this issue based on generational, income and racial groups. I can understand generational issues, but not really the other two.

67 percent of those polled supported providing students with birth control items, and 62 percent said that an effort like this would reduce teenage pregnancies.

What are your thoughts?

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There is still room for improvement in U.S. schools in terms of overall student health, but great strides have been made by many districts in recent years in terms of removing junk food from schools and promoting more physical exercise among students.

A new report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) -- called the School Health Policies and Programs Study 2006 -- was released last week and noted the list of improvements from schools across the country.

It's taken a long time, but perhaps the obesity epidemic has finally caused health officials to look hard at the massive marketing and variety of unhealthy habits pushed onto school-aged children. Banning vending machines and requiring some type of physical exercise is a great start, and one I hope will last. Next up: parental responsibility outside of school initiatives. Let's just see what happens there.

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