Missy Chase Lapine, aka “the Sneaky Chef,” has made a cottage industry out of using stealth in the service of health. After writing three wildly successful books showing parents how they can sneak wholesome foods into their children’s diets, she has now teamed up with celebrity personal trainer Larysa DiDio to help parents sneak exercise into their children’s day-to-day activities. Sneaky Fitness: Fun, Foolproof Ways to Slip Fitness into Your Child’s Everyday Life, published in January by Running Press, includes innovative yet simple ideas for fun and parent-child bonding through movement. (For instance, try bringing home bubble wrap from the office and encouraging the kids to jump on it!) The activities help children burn hundreds more calories per day… and without any nagging! These two creative ladies offer one hundred suggestions that promote activity as well as fifty new recipes for healthy snacks that provide fuel for more get-up-and-go.

Missy is the former publisher of Eating Well magazine and the founder of a natural baby product line BabySpa. She has been a cooking instructor at New York’s finest culinary schools. She serves on the Children’s Advisory Council of Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York–Presbyterian, which serves food made from Sneaky Chef recipes to its lucky patients. Sneaky Chef prepared foods are also now sold at Whole Foods Market.

Both a cooking expert and a mom, Lapine developed the “Sneaky Chef” concept in order to get good nutrients into her own children’s bodies. Her first book in the series The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals (Running Press, April 2007) became a New York Times bestseller and inspired a whole new brand in the healthy eating/lifestyles category. Missy’s second book, The Sneaky Chef: How to Cheat on Your Man in the Kitchen, was published in April 2008, and the third in the series, The Sneaky Chef to the Rescue, came out last in April 2009.

Missy has been featured in a variety of media, including many national and local television appearances on the Today show, (check out the clip), Fox & Friends, and iVillage; radio appearances on National Public Radio, WOR, Martha Stewart Radio, and many others. She has also contributed to many national magazines and Web sites, including Parenting, SELF, First, Family Fun, and Scholastic magazine, Education.com, ModernMom.com, HotMomsClub.com, SheKnows.com, and more.  Missy is a member of Parenting magazine’s team of experts, the “Mom Squad,” a panel of ten high-profile experts who will be featured regularly in the industry-leading magazine.

Coauthor Larysa Didio is a certified personal trainer whose Get Fit with Larysa DVD is targeted to “tween” girls. She owns PFX, one of the first gyms to offer classes tailored to kids.

By Carrie Cantor