The health experts say kids should get 60 minutes of physical activity every day. A group of enthusiastic fourth-graders from Cedarcreek Elementary School in Canyon Country has taken this recommendation to heart.

These 12 students are members of the Nutrition Advisory Council (NAC) at Cedarcreek.

A recent noontime adventure found them walking up Whites Canyon to the Todd Longshore Park to eat their lunch.

As the students walked, they stopped frequently to check their new pedometers, comparing notes as to how many steps they had taken.

Their goal was to get a good start on a total of 10,000 steps for the day. So, if every 2,000 steps equal a mile, how far had they gone??

Meeting twice each month since September, these students have spent their lunch hours in hands-on activities, learning how they can improve their health by making better food choices, choosing more fruits and vegetables and becoming more physically active.

The students have become peer educators for their classes, taking back activities and messages to share with their teacher and classmates.

The students have studied MyPyramid, food safety and sanitation and learned how to measure ingredients and prepare recipes. After studying advertising and its effects, they took pictures of fellow students making healthy food and activity choices during lunch and recess.

Then they constructed posters with colorful messages to encourage the entire school to eat smart and play hard.

NAC students have also learned about specific fruits and vegetables that are featured each month through the Harvest of the Month program at the school.

Each spring the NAC group sponsors a Nutrition Olympic event with activities to get the entire school involved.

No matter what their age, the students all enjoy the Carrot Hop, the Strawberry Relay, Fruit Toss and the MyPyramid relay.

Little bags of baby carrots are a much sought after prize for participating in these nutrition-linked activities.

NAC students have recently completed a series of public service announcements that have been taped for broadcast during the morning announcements through the technology of streaming video.

NAC is a program funded through the Network for a Healthy California, Santa Clarita Valley School Food Services Agency.

The focus of the program is to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables and promote physical activity in targeted communities.

NAC meets under the direction of Kim Farr, Cedarcreek teacher, and Sue Peak, R.D., nutrition educator and consultant with the SCVSFSA.