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Title: Dietary Guidelines/Portion Control
Principle Investigated: Identify recommended number of daily servings for each food group in the MyPyramid food guidance system. Taking a practical look at how many servings and hidden calories we consume and how many we should. The average American makes 200 food related decisions a day. We need to make sure they are right for our health.
Standards : National Health Educational Standards
1.1 Predict how healthy behaviors can impact health status
1.5 Propose ways to reduce or prevent health problems
Materials: One set of measuring cups & spoons per group, one or two large paper bowls & one or two small paper bowl per group, two clear plastic cups per group, one box of high sugar cereal and one box of low sugar cereal per group, one 1 lb. box of Pure Cane White Sugar per group, five of the following (suggested or flavors you think your students drink) drinks (one per group): Soda (Pepsi), Sports Drink (Gatorade), Energy Drink (Monster), Flavored Water, Iced Tea (Arizona), five of the following snacks (one per group): Skittles, Granola Bar, Power Bar, PopTarts, Sour Patch Watermelon Candies.
(All materials can be inexpensively purchased at a dollar store or grocery store, or this experiment could be done with one student in front of the class to save money.)
Procedure:
Day One:
Choosing healthful Foods: Students will be taught to identify the functions and sources of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, water, and herbal supplements. Students must also be taught the five elements required on all food labels and learn how to read a food label to help you determine your caloric intake. They will be introduced to MyPyramid.gov website which has many teaching tools for them regarding nutrition. They will be introduced to caloric intake and expenditure with regard to age, sex and physical activity.
Day Two:
Start with the following experiment. Make sure your room is set up for groups and you have the materials ready to go prior to class.
Serving Size Experiment:
- Divide class into groups of 4-5 students. Give each group 2 different types of boxes of cereal (one high sugar, one low sugar), one box of sugar, several small bowls, several large bowls, two clear plastic cups, one drink & one snack per group. (save cost just do one type of cereal per group or in front of class)
- Ask a few students to grab one bowl each (let them choose between the small and large bowls...we will address this in a moment) and pour in the amount of cereal (either kind) they would typically eat for breakfast.
- Have everyone hold up their bowl of cereal and direct them to look around at everyone's bowl. Identify how many chose the large bowls rather than small bowls.
- TEACHING MOMENT: A smaller bowl is usually adequate for one serving size.
- Then ask them to read the nutrition information on the box of cereal that they used, identify the serving size, and pour that amount from their bowl into an empty bowl using the measuring cups (they will need to take turns & share the measuring cups).
- Have students observe what is left in their original bowl and talk about their findings with their group. Then have a representative from each group share with the class.
- TEACHING MOMENT: Talk about calorie counts and how we can quickly consume a high amount of calories without even knowing it when we don't think intentionally about portion size.
Sugar Experiment:
- Tell groups to now look at their snack and drink and identify how many grams of sugar are in each.
- Tell them that four grams of sugar equals one teaspoon. Have the groups calculate how many teaspoons of sugar are in each drink and snack and measure each out into the clear plastic cups.
- Have the groups show each other how much sugar is in each item by having them hold up their drinks and snacks and the cups of sugar that coincide.
- Then have them pour the sugar into one of the cups.
- IF TIME ALLOWS:
- Have the groups now look back at their cereal boxes and measure the amount of teaspoons of sugar in each, then add to the cup of sugar.
- Then ask the groups to show everyone their cups and state observations they notice about the different snacks, drinks, and cereal each group has and the amount of sugar that results.
Students will be given a handout with dietary guidelines from MyPyramid.gov to decide how to choose the proper nutrients and recommended amounts for their age, gender and activity level.
For HOMEWORK or a lab.
1. Log onto my pyramid. create an account and go to my menu planner. Fill out the details of what you food you have eaten for one day and see if you have the proper nutrients to have a healthy diet.
http://www.mypyramid.gov/audiovideo/podcastfiles/4menuplanner/MenuPlanner.wmv
Print your results and turn in for homework.
2.Handout assignment to be completed in class or homework
Complete the mypyramid.gov assignment attached to find out how many calories you are consuming in one day.
This video can be showed at end of second day or during lab for added information.
http://disney.go.com/magic-of-healthy-living/
Student Prior Knowledge: The students need to have a lesson on each food group. Within that lesson they need to know the nutrients contained in each group and what foods they can eat to get that nutrient.
Explanation:
We will be doing an experiment where students will
* evaluate their current eating habits
* Look at suggested serving size
* Look at sugar content and empty calories
Questions and Answers:
What are the major factors seen today that are causing the current obesity rates in children?
Lack of exercise and consuming too many calories is the simple answer. We have more options available to us through the supermarket which averages 70 additional food items for us to chose from than 20 years ago. Society today equates busy with success so we tend to be on the go everyday causing most Americans to consume high calorie fast food meals.
Often we are too busy to get the required amount of exercise which is another component to a healthy weight. Teens are suppose to exercise 60 minutes a day. Exercise and a healthy diet seem to be the first two things to go with this fast paced lifestyle many Americans have chosen. Long gone are the days of sitting down to the dinner table with a healthy meal, good conversation and carefully chewing/savoring every bite to aid in proper digestion.
Here is a chart that shows the obesity trends in the United States from 1985-2009
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
Here is a quick way to tell your Body Mass Index
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
What does a healthy portion look like?
http://disney.go.com/magic-of-healthy-living/
This is just one example that may be fun for students to watch or teachers to model.
How can I figure out how much food I should eat in a day?
We have a great resource for us on the web. I have attached a few calorie count worksheets to help answer that question. Age, gender and physical activity all play a role in your calorie count. The average active teenage girl should consume 2200 calories in a day and the male about 3000. We need to make sure the calories we put in our mouth have nutrients in them. Limit your empty calories.
Calorie count sheet for 12 different calorie diets
http://www.mypyramid.gov/downloads/MyPyramid_Food_Intake_Patterns.pdf
Worksheet for a 2200 calorie diet (athletic female teen)
http://www.mypyramid.gov/downloads/worksheets/Worksheet_2200_18.pdf
Worksheet for a 3000 calorie diet (athletic male teen)
http://www.mypyramid.gov/downloads/worksheets/Worksheet_3000_18.pdf
Application to Everyday Life:
We make 200 food choices a day on average. To maintain optimal health we need to eat based on our needs not what smells good or what comforts us emotionally. We all need proteins, carbs, fats, vitamins, water, and minerals in our diet daily. Fruits and vegetables provide many of these but we need to eat a wide variety of color, eat more raw then cooked and stay hydrated to keep our bodies fueled and minds sharp.
It is important to know how much you need in each category and what is the best type of food to give you those nutrients.
Photographs:
See uploaded photos in Picasa. Table with experiment contents and sample calorie count chart with specific nutrient guide.
Videos:
Portion Control experiment: Example of how it looks in the classroom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUKTFX0aIrw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUKTFX0aIrw&feature=player_detailpagehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUKTFX0aIrw&feature=player_detailpage
Portion Control/ Caloric Intake for 2200 calories per day. Sample weekly Menu
http://www.mypyramid.gov/downloads/sample_menu.pdf
Recommended food intake patterns based on 12 different caloric intake models
http://www.mypyramid.gov/downloads/MyPyramid_Food_Intake_Patterns.pdf
Caloric Results and food tracking worksheets
http://www.mypyramid.gov/professionals/results_downld.html
How to Reduce Salt in your daily diet:
http://www.eatright.org/NNM/content.aspx?id=5409
Food Safety:
http://www.eatright.org/NNM/content.aspx?id=5409
Tips On Canned and Fresh Produce:
http://www.eatright.org/NNM/content.aspx?id=5409
Good Body Mass Index calculator:
Adult BMI can be calculated at http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/. A child and adolescent BMI calculator is available at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/dnpabmi/.
BMI Defined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index
BMI Calculator:
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
An over abundance of print material for nutrition:
http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/printpages.html
Video Podcast on nutrition:
http://www.mypyramid.gov/audiovideo/podcastindex.html
weblink: mypyramid.gov
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