NUTRITION INTERACTIONS

At its most basic level, food provides energy to make a body move; much like gasoline makes a car go.  Food also provides the structure for building and rebuilding muscles, bones, hair, skin, nails, blood, and brain tissue.  Obviously, nutrition is central to overall good health and wellness.  But did you know that food is also closely linked to student wellness and achievement through better health, increased attendance, increased academic performance, and positive behavior?  It has become apparent that nutrition education holds an important place in the classroom.  Because school is a place where students practice eating behaviors, the classroom, cafeteria, and entire school environment are ideal places for students to learn about good nutrition.  By making it a regular part of the curriculum, students can begin making positive changes in their nutrition practices and develop healthy habits that will last a lifetime.


OBJECTIVES FOR MODULE ONE

• Determine the foundation for evaluating a student’s health, nutritional needs, and a healthy environment.

• Identify opportunities to incorporate nutrition information into daily interactions with students. 

• Provide knowledge and skills that will enable students to make appropriate food choices when choosing meals and snacks. 

• Determine what constitutes proper eating behaviors and attitudes in students and young adults. 

• Incorporate nutrition information into daily lessons to enable students to make realistic, informed choices regarding their basic needs.

Choosing foods of nutrient dense composition can provide many positive benefits in a student’s life; however, food choices made by students also have the capacity to diminish a student’s quality of life through either excess consumption or poor nutrition.  These choices can also impact a student’s ability to learn.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has complied statistical evidence¹ relating to childhood obesity and the associated risk behaviors indicate that poor choices combined with excess consumption are currently at all time highs.  According to the research,

• Only 2 percent of students meet the daily Food Guide Pyramid recommendations

• The number of overweight students has nearly doubled in the last decade

• One out of four students is overweight or at risk for becoming overweight  

• Sixty-one percent of overweight students ages 5 to 10 have one or more heart disease risk factors

• Less than 1 in 4 students get at least 30 minutes of physical activity per day

• Type II diabetes, once considered an adult disease, is becoming increasingly common in overweight students

"It’s never been more important than now to place school environments, teachers, parents and food service workers in a position to help support parental actions and support education objectives by creating an environment that can help reverse this downward trend in student’s health."  ²

So where to start?  With all the reliable resources that have been recently developed to address the above issues, it requires nothing more than a click of the mouse button to reach some excellent program materials, which are accurate, easy to review, and learn.
 

Resource Bibliography: 
¹ US Department of Health and Human Services, The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity 2001, Retrieved February 1, 2007 from  http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/obesity/calltoaction/CalltoAction.pdf
² National Middle School Association, Exploring Essential Components:  Physical Activity, Nutrition, and the Young Adolescent, Retrieved February 27, 2007 from  http://www.nmsa.org/Advocacy/WellnessPolicy/WellnessPresentation/tabid/1014/Default.aspx#