A close family friend was recently diagnosed with some serious health problems and was encouraged to change his diet. He came to me looking for some suggestions on how he could adapt some of the recipes he already liked and was using. After researching, I realized there are a lot of healthy substitutions to be made with very common ingredients. This made me think that this knowledge could be useful for my students as well since it’s highly possible that they might need to use this information in the future for themselves or their own families.

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Would your students drink a glass of pure sugar? Probably not, but they have no trouble drinking sugary beverages by glass.of.sugarwhat seems like the gallon. Students are not always aware of the amount of sugar they are consuming or the health effects associated with too much sugar. In this lesson students will discover the difference between natural sugar and added sugar, the common aliases of sugar used on nutrition labels, and the health issues associated with consuming too much, while also investigating the amounts of sugar found in the common beverages they consume on a daily basis.

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The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 2.7 percent of teens (both males and females) between the ages of Be Aware13-18 will struggle with an eating disorder. In my school that would calculate out to approximately 20 students, which is 20 students too many! It’s important to teach students what eating disorders are, what their characteristics are including the warning signs, why they occur and how to get help.

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Essential nutrients are those that must be provided through a balanced diet as the body cannot make them or make nutrient.chain.Ithem in sufficient amounts. Every food we eat is made up of nutrients. Trying to get teenagers to understand the importance of eating key nutrients and what they do for our bodies can be challenging as there is so much information and sometimes only a limited time in which to teach it. So in order to give students an overview of the key nutrients without taking several weeks to cover the materials, I developed a combination of teacher directed and student directed activities. To help students understand the amount of nutrients in the foods they choose, I have students participate in a Tater Topper lab and then “Profile Their Potato” for essentials nutrients using the My Recipe portion of Supertracker.

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Have you ever seen an idea that sparked another idea? Well that is what happened with this lesson plan. Edith Rohrer, a FACS teacher from Indiana, Vision Board. I shared a web based personalized goals activity using the Choose MyPlate website. When I saw this great activity, I immediately thought there should be a follow-up assignment to help students visualize, plan and set goals to help them achieve their personal eating and exercise goals based on this information. And so the vision board project was created.

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