Healthy-Eating Expert

The teen, who grew up in Arizona and now lives in New Windsor, New York, wanted to spread the word about the power of eating well. When she was 12, Haile launched her own organization—Healthy Active Positive Purposeful Youth, or HAPPY—to do just that. Through HAPPY, Haile provides workshops on nutrition and culinary education for elementary and middle school students.

Last year, Haile became the youngest certified integrative nutrition health coach in the U.S. “I wanted to get certified to make sure no one wondered if I knew what I was talking about,” she says. Haile spoke with Science World about helping others live healthfully.

One thing we do is pop-up workshops in schools. One is called Sugar Shockers. We set out sugary beverages and cereals. Kids guess how much sugar is in each serving.

We go through how to read nutrition labels and talk about how too much sugar can negatively affect our health. Kids learn to make homemade granola as a healthier alternative to sugary cereal. We talk about drinking plenty of water, and we make smoothies with fruits and veggies.

We also run weeklong cooking camps where kids learn knife skills and kitchen safety. We teach them about organic food grown without certain chemicals and seasonal eating, which focuses on freshly harvested foods. We tour farms, and the campers do some cooking for themselves.

Look at what’s in your food by reading ingredient lists. A jar of tomato sauce might not just have tomatoes and salt and herbs in it. It might have a lot of sugar too. A product’s ingredients might also list chemicals you don’t recognize. Research to find out what they are.

Developing awareness of what you’re putting into your body often leads to wanting to cook more of your own food. That’s my next tip: Get into the kitchen more. Have fun and be creative when you cook. Try different things. Be open to new ingredients and cuisines. You just might discover a new favorite food.