It’s the beginning of a new year and most of us are thinking about ways to eat less and lose weight. Sadly, there are millions of hungry children that desperately need to be fed. Amazon has stepped up to the plate to help feed children through the United Nations World Food Programme. When you purchase an exclusive FEED bag through Amazon, you will feed lunch to one child every day for a year! Since the children are fed through the school lunch program, families are encouraged to send their children to school so they benefit from education as well as nutrition.

Amazon has taken a bold and important step in teaching us about world hunger and making it easy for us to help. According to Amazon:

• Hunger and malnutrition are the #1 risk to global health, killing more people than AIDS, malaria, and TB combined
• Every 5 seconds a child dies because he or she is hungry
• In 2005 WFP fed 21.7 million children in 74 countries
• Research shows that free school lunches can increase attendance rates by 100% and boost academic performance

What is the Amazon FEED bag? It’s a very large tote bag that is reversible with burlap on one side and white canvas on the reverse side. Each side has large stenciled lettering that says FEED and is made to resemble the bags of food that are distributed to schools around the world. The bag has pockets on the cotton side to make it a convenient and practical tote. We bought one and were surprised by the large size and how well made it was. Our only reservation is that some of the ladies may not want to walk around with a burlap FEED bag since it also resembles livestock feed bags. However, it’s casual, roomy, practical, and it makes an important statement that will hopefully give others something to think about.

We’re all concentrating on our diets right now, and it’s so easy to become focused on our own appetites and meal plans. We can’t think of a better time to help feed the children. When we’re cutting back on restaurant food and unnecessary snacks to improve our own health, lets consider sending the money saved to worthwhile organizations such as the World Food Programme.

When you purchase the bag for $59, $20 goes to the WFP and pays for lunch for one child for an entire year. Visit Amazon for more information.

If you’d prefer to donate the entire $59 or any other dollar amount and bypass the bag, you can do so by visiting the WFP website.

Are you a Mindless Eater? If you’ve ever scraped the bottom of a large tub of popcorn, polished off a platter of pasta, or even grazed the grass of your kid’s Easter Basket for hidden treasure (yes - we know all the tricks), then you probably are a mindless eater! The book Mindless Eating has completely changed the way we look at overindulgence, and and it has taught us to be more conscious of what we put into our mouths. You can read our complete review, which we wrote for our friends at The Diet Channel.

We promise you’ll never look at a buffet the same again after reading this book. I’ll be honest - I fall asleep reading books all the time. They relax me and just lull me to sleep. But while reading this book, I saw a lot of my own habits exposed - which was exciting in a disturbingly fun sort of way, and I tore right through the book without as much of a yawn. This book will teach you what a diet can’t!

Taking it one step further

Dr Brian Wansink, the funny and brilliant doctor that authored the book, has started The Mindless Eating Challenge with his buddy Dr Collin Payne. They’ve started this challenge to go one step further and give you some interactive help with making better habits for good health and weight loss. I joined the challenge, and based on my survey answers, they gave me 3 changes to make in my life to help me reach that goal. These are not drastic changes. They are actually very simple, and it is surprising how much impact they will make on my weight loss if I stick with them. I checked in with the Challenge today and let them know how I did. I got instant feedback that if I continue on with last week’s habits, I’ll lose 13 pounds in a year with no other efforts. That was really surprising, because I didn’t even feel the changes!

Joining the Challenge is easy. Whether you read the book or not, you’ll benefit from the challenge. Fill out the survey. Each month. you’ll be given 3 changes to make in your life. The folks at the Challenge will email you to remind you to check in and update your progress. They’ll evaluate your response and keep you on track! Visit The Diet Channel to read all about it, and while you are there, sign up for one of their blogs and share your positive changes with other bloggers. This can truly make a painless change in your weight loss!