March is National Nutrition Month.

Here in the state of Arkansas, The Alliance For a Healthier Generation says one in three children is overweight or obese. As for adults, the 2016 profile for Arkansas by the Center for Disease Control states almost 36% of the Natural State’s adult population is obese. According to America’s Health Rankings’ 2016 report, Arkansas ranks 45th out of the 50 states when it comes to obesity.

It’s a ranking nutritionist Jill Turley looks to improve on. She travels across the United States working with The Alliance For a Healthier Generation, a nonprofit focused on addressing the growing epidemic of childhood obesity. According to Turley, it’s easier to teach kids at an early age to love healthy foods. She says the best way to shift toward a healthier lifestyle is through gradual changes. She suggests focusing on one change a week and says getting the kids involved can get them more excited to try new foods.

Turley says, “Food is everywhere, so it’s important that we are making decisions about food, we’re making decisions about nutrition that are going to stay with us for the rest of our lives…Maybe this week you focus on drinking more water and next week you focus on making sure you’re eating two or three green vegetables that week, but what are those small steps that we can take to make lasting changes that are going to stay with us for the rest of our lifetime?”

She adds, “They are more willing to eat those things when they have both taken part in it, but then also had the opportunity to try it in kind of an informal setting and these are habits that we’re developing in kids early on because it’s a lot easier to teach them early on than it is, you know – we all can attest to this – than it is to break those habits as an adult.”

According to the CDC, 28% of adults in Arkansas reported eating vegetables less than one time daily. Turley says trying to get green vegetables in your diet twice a week is a great way to kick-start healthy eating.