GEM NO. 137

Ambassadors to the Future Stephanie Chan, M.A., RD. American Heart Association Alameda County Chapter P.O. Box 5157 Oakland, CA 94605

Can you meet the challenge? What's the BEST way to teach young children about good nutrition and food habits : problem-solving field trips discussions surveys board games guest -speakers experiments role-playing displays lectures storytelling skits and plays puppet shows demonstrations

Now ... what's the answer? As most nu­trition educators will agree, there is no "cut and dried" solution. There is no "best" method for teaching nutrition. Appropriate educational tools and teaching techniques vary according to factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, income level, and educational background. In order to be successful in reaching a target audience with a nutritional message, every factor must be considered. Nutrition educators must be open-minded and innovative enough so that they are able to recognize and act upon any opportunity to teach nutrition.

As part of the annual "Food Festival" event sponsored by the American Heart Associa­tion, a third grade class in Oakland, Cali­fornia participated in a nutrition lesson that combined many of the above-mentioned teaching techniques.

A lesson plan was developed with two ob­jectives in mind: (1) to provide nutrition in­formation , and (2) to increase awareness of good food choices. In particular, at the end of the lesson, the students would be able to:

-explain why too much fat, sugar, and sodium (salt) is not good for your body.

-be able to read labels on products and to identify the major ingredients.

-be able to identify foods that are high in fat, sugar, and/or sodium (salt).

So that the nutrition lesson could be rep­licated using accurate information, a list of key facts was established:

-loo much fat in the diet can lead to over­weight, heart disease, etc.

-too much sugar in the diet can lead to dental caries.

-too much sodium (salt) in the diet can lead to high blood pressure, particularly with those people who have a family history of this condition. High blood pressure can lead to heart attack, stroke or kidney disease if it is not detected and treated.

-the ingredients of a product can be de­termined by reading the label.

-the ingredients that are listed at the be­ginning of the ingredient list make up most of the product.

-advertising can often be misleading; therefore, it is important to read prod­uct labels.

-products that ofter "free" toys (e.g., presweetened cereals) aren't necessar­ily good for your health.

-fast foods olten contain a lot of fat, sugar, and sodium (salt).

-"sugar," "corn syrup," "molasses," and "honey" are all different names for sugar.

The children, as well as the teachers, were enthusiastic and appreciative of the project. Having a guest speaker come into the class­room for an hour was a special "treat." A demonstration in which the class and the nutrition specialist counted the number of teaspoons of fat or sugar in various foods was particularly successful. Another activity in­volved working with partners. The children worked together to complete a handout (Fig­ure 1), a project that taught them how to read food labels. Bringing in empty cans and packages of food allowed the students to have "hands-on" experience in reading product labels. In addition to the discussions about good health habits and food choices, the "Food Festival" balloons and stickers that were distributed reinforced the message of this event.

This project was beneficial to everyone involved. It was welcomed by the commu­nity, as well as the school. ObViously, a one­hour nutrition lesson could not be expected to change the food habits of the children who participated. It did, however, expose the participants, the school, and the community to available and reliable resources. In ad­dition, the children learned how to read food product labels. This skill is important since they influence their parents' grocery pur­chases now, and will need to practice this behavior when they themselves become food shoppers.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

Copies of the lesson plan are available from the American Heart Association, Alameda County Chapter, 11200 Golf Links Road, P.O. Box 5157, Oakland, CA, 94605.

What's On a Food Package?

~'y N .; InformatIOn '" j" _ Nutrition

"ty"'0 . <v~ '" c<::f "" Ingredients

Name of li:t>Y ~ Ust PrOduct Name and

Address of the People Who Make

Net Weight of This PrOduct this Product Names: ____ _

READING FOOD LABELS 1. Name of the food: _____ _ 2. How many servings are there in each

package? ________ _

3. How much fat is in it?

4. How much sodium is in it? 5. What are the first three ingredients

listed? 1) _______ _

2) _______ _

3) _______ _

6. Do you think that this food has a lot of sugar in it?

Figure 1. Student handout.

Figure 2. Counting the number of table­spoons of fat in a typical, fast food meal.

JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION 22:240A, 1990