By Talia Reiss and Brinn Adler

With a growing obesity epidemic in the United States, it’s important that people learn healthy eating habits from a young age. However, many parts of Nyack’s nutrition curriculum can trigger shame cycles and self-destructive eating patterns that can follow students throughout their lives. We must address these issues in every level of health education to ensure that students develop a healthy relationship with food. 

There are many great things taught about in our nutrition curriculum. It’s true, for example, that a well-balanced diet is important for maintaining energy levels, promoting brain development, boosting the immune system, and improving muscle strength. To health teacher Ms. Ryan, a balanced diet includes foods that are “rich in nutrients” such as “greens, lean meats, and whole grains,” but it can also include sweet treats from time to time. “Everything in moderation,” she advises. 

When teaching nutrition, it's so important to teach kids how to create a healthy and loving relationship with food. As kids grow up, they begin to learn unrealistic body standards, which make them more insecure about how they look. This can lead to eating disorders. Eating disorders come in all different forms, so there should be no ideal body type taught in nutrition. Regardless of whether you're slim or not, everyone's body is different and beautiful. 

A majority of children's food issues stem from body negativity heard from adults: Adults often portray a negative relationship with their body and food by normalizing not eating enough, eliminating necessary foods, commenting harshly on their own bodies, and constantly weighing themselves. This is a product of what these adults were taught growing up not only from their home life, but also from school. It's important to remember that the nutrition curriculum can affect many generations’ and individuals’ relationships with food if things don't change for the better. 

In general, assigning moral value to food (for example, preaching that vegetables are “good” and cake is “bad”) can lead to disordered eating patterns. When people feel guilty for treating themself to a piece of cake, they often try to compensate by removing the food from their system and/or starving themselves for a period of time. This creates a cycle of binging and purging: giving in to natural human urges by eating a lot of “unhealthy” food, feeling guilty, then using dangerous methods as a form of self-punishment. This cycle is far more damaging to a person’s health than simply eating that piece of cake. At the end of the day, food is food. It is not good or bad. It is simply fuel for our bodies and minds. 

Furthermore, shaming people for eating processed foods ignores the inability of many families to afford expensive fresh ingredients. In every sixth grade health class, students watch a film called “Supersize Me” in which 32-year-old Morgan Spurlock exclusively ate McDonald’s food for thirty days. By the end of the movie, Spurlock’s weight and cholesterol skyrocketed and his doctors found fat accumulation in his liver. While these results seem shocking, Spurlock’s experiment was strikingly unscientific. During the thirty-day experiment, Spurlock changed much more than the type of food he was consuming: he also stopped exercising and massively increased his caloric intake. It makes sense that his weight soared. 

We are not arguing that McDonalds is healthy. It is undeniable that high levels of sugar, sodium, and fat in fast foods can have detrimental effects on a person’s health, and health classes should absolutely continue to teach students about these dangers. However, films like "Supersize Me" make students feel bad for food choices that many cannot control. More than 11% of Nyack residents live below the federal poverty line, leaving them with few options outside of processed or fast food.  

There are many ways to improve the curriculum to be more sensitive and less triggering. In health classes, certain days should be designated to teaching self love and body positivity.  Including a unit about different types of eating disorders would also be helpful. “In my Critical Health Issues class,  I have a guest speaker from the NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association) come in to share her struggles of living with an eating disorder,” said Ms. Ryan. “We also discuss the various eating disorders, signs someone has an eating disorder, what can be triggering, how to support someone living with an eating disorder ,and where to go for help.”

This is a great learning experience that should be implemented in all health classes. It can be refreshing to remember that your value isn't determined by your weight or your looks. Additionally, I think it could make a lot of students feel like they're not alone,  and that their class is a safe space for them to feel comfortable in their own skin. 

It's  also essential to give students an option to sit out the unit and do lighter or different work to make up for it. In Ms. Ryan’s Class, students can always “opt out of any unit that they might feel uncomfortable with,” which is a great step towards making health classrooms safe and comfortable spaces. Overall, the most important thing to remember is that everyone is sensitive to different things. Health teachers should make sure to take the unit slow and be as positive and sensitive as possible.