“As adolescents grow and sexual maturation proceeds, three general factorsnutrition, exercise and sleepplay important roles. Adequate nutrition is especially important to adolescents who need energy for the growth, activity and operation of a rapidly enlarging body.”
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While thinking of Dr. Schowalter’s and Dr. Anyan’s statement about the importance of good nutrition, I look at my adolescent students: their skinny bodies; the fact that they are always complaining about being tired; their lack of motivation and inability to focus on tasks; their talk of trivial things; the way they give incorrect responses most of the time; the way they tend to look at irrelevant ideas without using problem solving skills; their very erratic behaviors; the aggressiveness of some, and the depression and withdrawal of others. All of these students demonstrate a low tolerance for frustration. Most of them also have health problems: asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia and other respiratory infections, and epilepsy. In addition, many of them have speech problems. Looking at all of this, I think about their parents, some of whom are also sick, and I think of the homes these students come from. These homes are in depressed areas and usually consist of a large family with illiterate, non-working parents who are living in precarious conditions.
There is an important book by Dr. Herbert G. Birch and Dr. Joan Dye called
Disadvantaged Children, Health, Nutrition and School Failure
in which they cite important findings which I have included here in my unit in the hope that every teacher who works with these children will understand the reality of their lives, and at the same time feel motivated to help bring about changes in these students and begin to break the link between poverty and ignorance which the authors cite. In their book, Dr. Birch and Dr. Dye note a high correlation between poverty, malnutrition, slow physical growth and low academic achievement. The authors describe some of their studies which show a link between low social classes and the elevated rate of exposure to conditions of risk for later maldevelopments such as early pregnancy, birth complications associated with fetal and neonatal death due to brain injury. They state: “A large fraction do not die but, depending on the trauma, develop a series of disorders extending from cerebral palsy, epilepsy and mental deficiency through all types of behavioral and learning disabilities resulting from lesser degrees of damage sufficient to disorganize behavioral development and lower thresholds to stress.”
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They also state, “It is clearly beyond dispute that in these countries children handicapped not only by poverty but additionally by membership in a depressed minority are at much greater risk of leaving school without an adequate education than are their less disadvantaged contemporaries. Given their poor education, such children are doomed in young adulthood to either no employment or only marginal employment. As a consequence, their poverty is almost certain to persist into their adult life and be handed down to their children who will more likely than not repeat their parents’ patterns of school failure.
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The authors continue, “Over the past 10 to 15 years as the effect of nutritional deprivation on physical growth has become more widely recognized, concern has increased that malnutrition might not only be limited to skeletal growth but might also be exerting deleterious effects on the central nervous system and thus be functioning to depress the adaptative and intellectual capacities of the children who have been at nutritional risk
in infancy. It has been clear that one characteristic of the clinical syndrome of nutritional stress was psychological disturbance.” There is an agreement in the reports from workers in many different countries, they say, that the single most common behavioral finding in malnourished children is apathy accompanied by irritability. The authors state: “ Children severely ill from any cause seem to lose all the child’s normal curiosity and desire for exploration, but so marked is this condition of unresponsiveness in malnutrition that renewal of interest in the environment has become in many clinical centers one of the most reliable signs of a child’s improving nutritional status.”
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In the beginning of this interesting book about the poor, the authors state: “In the newly emerging countries it has been recognized that educational failure is part of a cycle of poverty, social ineffectiveness and ignorance that is repetitive unless the links which build its component parts are broken.” How can we as educators help to break this link of poverty and ignorance? According to the authors, malnutrition is probably one if not the major cause for this syndrome. Then can we as educators help students and parents to improve their nutritional patterns? Can we create some awareness in students and parents of the important factors that contribute to maintaining healthy physical, intellectual and emotional development? I believe that as educators we definitely have an important role to play in breaking the link of poverty and ignorance.
The questions that come to my mind are: How can I help my students to recognize the importance of good nutrition in order to have good mental and physical growth? How can I motivate them to try different foods? How can I involve parents at the same time, since they are the family providers?
Keeping in mind that these students are not interested in reading and have low comprehension skills, the curriculum has to be simple to read and rich in visual and manipulative materials. The goals will be:
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1.
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To help students to recognize the importance of good nutrition for healthy physical growth.
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2.
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To help students learn what good nutrition means.
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3.
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To enable students to identify the basic groups of food, their nutrients, and how these nutrients help their bodies.
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4.
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To involve the parents of these students in nutritional education.
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Words To Study
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nutrition
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nutrient
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protein
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carbohydrate
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fat
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vitamin
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Procedure
The teacher will start by presenting to the students transparencies of children with different types of diseases caused by malnutrition. The teacher will initiate discussion encouraging students to express their feelings and thoughts about what they see and about the consequences of poor nutrition. The teacher will explain to students that they will learn how to avoid these diseases by learning how to improve their eating habits and hygiene. The teacher will continue by explaining that even when money is limited, people can still eat healthy meals. Some of the points to be covered in this discussion can include: buying fruits and vegetables of the season; buying foods that contain the nutrients we need in order to grow; avoiding eating too much food high in fat, sugar and salt because of the health problems these can create; and getting the most value for their money by checking for sale prices and cutting out and redeeming coupons. The teacher will present to the students a table of contents listing foods, nutrients, and what these nutrients do to the body. Accompanying this table will be colored pictures of different kinds of food. (Note: These colored pictures can be obtained in supermarkets, in magazines and newspapers or from teachers’ suppliers. After analyzing the content table for two or three days, the teacher will present posters with the four groups of food: the milk group, the meat group, the vegetable and fruit group, and the bread and cereal group. Students will look at, describe, compare and analyze these groups.
