We've been learning all about nutrition this week, and I have loved it! I especially loved watching a few of the kindergartners' confused faces when I told them that french fries are actually not something we should eat every day... I can't say I blame them - I grew up thinking that corn was a vegetable 😊 On the other hand, I love hearing conversations from students who obviously are learning at home how to make healthy food choices.
Our nutrition lessons are some of my favorites because I feel like there is so much confusion surrounding nutrition these days - with the gluten-free movement, vegetarians, and other dietary restrictions. Technically nutrition isn't part of the PE curriculum, but I like to provide the students with the basics because the food choices we make are crucial to our overall health.
We began the week by running relays to place food into three categories - food we should eat rarely, sometimes, or every day. Even with this seemingly simple activity, students have some interesting ideas based on what they have seen on TV, heard at home, heard from friends, etc. The tricky thing about nutrition is that very intelligent people have devoted their lives to the study of food, and yet they come up with dissimilar ideas about what is "good" for our bodies. It's safe to say they don't all agree on meat, grains, and dairy. All that to say, while every day vs. sometimes is a bit obscure, we can all agree that foods like candy, soda, ice cream, and McDonald's should fall into the rarely category.
The second lesson involved familiarizing themselves with the food pyramid. They rode and drove their "grocery carts" to place food items into the correct bin according to food group. Check out the action
https://vimeo.com/191887197
I recently watched a fantastic documentary on Netflix, called "Fed Up", concerning nutrition and the obesity epidemic. In a nutshell, this is what the documentary reveals -
Consider that, since the ‘80s, the number of overweight children has gone from one in 20 to one in five. And while entire industries have ignited over weight loss, the number of those struggling to shed pounds only grows. “Fed Up” reveals the complex ways in which the government is inadvertently subsidizing the obesity epidemic through food lobbies. It guts the myth of personal responsibility (emphasized by the rhetoric of “eat more, exercise less”) and gets to the cause of our growing waistlines: processed food that has no nutritional value and ever-increasing helpings of added sugar.
Give it a watch if you have a free hour or two. Thanks for checking in! Have a great weekend, Wildcats!
Miss Stone
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