My unit specifically will deal with the visual aspect of healthy eating. I have found over the years through simple observation that there are many children who are not well educated about how to eat and how to stay healthy. If they have never seen a well-balanced meal at home, chances are they have not seen one at all. I have not seen a food pyramid since I began researching for this unit. There is no healthy food available in our cafeteria. The food is edible at best and I have been trying for some time to understand how it is that they fulfill any sort of nutritional requirement set by the state or the government. This has been a motivation for me to send an important message to our students.
When researching healthy diets, I came across a few facts about eating hot dogs and meats that were particularly disturbing.
"Children who eat twelve hot dogs per month have nearly ten times the risk of developing leukemia as children who do not eat hot dogs."
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"Children who eat hot dogs once a week double their chances of developing brain tumors; eating them twice a week triples the risk."
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"Children who eat the most ham, bacon and sausage have three times the risk of developing lymphoma."
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"Children who eat ground meat once a week have twice the risk of acute lymphocytic leukemia as those who eat none; eating two or more hamburgers weekly triples the risk."
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After reading this information I accessed the district menu for the month. According to the New Haven Public Schools Food Service Menu for May, the students will eat hot dogs or ground beef a possible eight times in the month of May.
All students in New Haven are offered free breakfast and lunch. According to their menu, per day the following must be provided: 8 ounces of milk, minimum one serving of grains/bread, two ounces of meat or meat alternative, and ¾ cup of vegetable/fruit
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. So the balanced meal the children ate on May 15, 2007 was a blueberry muffin, milk and fruit juice for breakfast, and a cheeseburger or hot dog on a bun with potato stars, fruit cup and milk. There were probably other options, such as salad and yogurt, which do not qualify as part of free lunch. If a student has no extra money for these options, their choice has been made for them. I guess we should be relieved that the potato chips and cookies are sold and not part of free lunch. Recently, soda machines have been removed from school cafeterias, but the juice is still available and is mostly made up sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Many of the students do not even eat the lunch provided for them, they save up their money for snacks and chips. I do not totally blame the children because the snacks are packaged and seem like a safer choice than a meat alternative. Consequently, my main focus will be on preventing and possibly correcting student obesity and inspiring students to take better care of themselves through healthy eating and physical activity. Hopefully, through this unit, students will eat more balanced diets, and/or encourage their parents to buy more healthful foods. We cannot force them to eat healthy foods; we can only provide them the necessary information to make better food choices.
Another motivation for my wanting to teach this unit is to raise awareness of the health risks of obesity. There are so many students who are obese in our school and I feel that they may need more information about living a healthy life in order for them to change. Obesity rates in children have increased drastically and are continuing to rise. "The percentage of young people who are overweight has more than tripled since 1980. Among children and adolescents aged 6-19 years, 16%--over 9 million young people--are considered overweight."
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It is imperative that we arm the students with the necessary information to improve their diet through making good food choices, even when faced with unhealthy options.
Children can also help to educate parents on more appealing food options and can even help make grocery lists based on the food pyramid. When children are obese, they are "more likely to have risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease (such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes) than are other children and adolescents."
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Additionally, overweight children suffer from sleep apnea and social consequences, such as discrimination and low self-esteem.
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This unit will teach these students will allow them to expand their knowledge of healthy eating and also educate other students about healthy eating through their sculptural mobiles. This unit will hopefully inspire students, teachers, and parents to take better care of themselves.
The importance of healthy eating and exercise cannot be understated, especially when the target audience is adolescents. The physical, mental and emotional changes these students experience during the throws of puberty and young adulthood is overwhelming. A well-balanced diet and exercise program is such an important part of a child's life and would help to ease the physical, mental and emotional burden of adolescence. It is also important in adulthood and if we teach students these lessons at an early age, they will take them through their lives and possibly avoid preventable health problems later in life. I believe this unit will teach many lessons to my students. It will enable them to make good, healthy food choices.