Good News About Stopping Smoking

Here are two good handouts or transparencies about what happens to the body when a smoker QUITS! Thanks Jenny!

Healthy Food Tees

Wouldn't it be fun to teach a nutrition lesson wearing one of these cute Tee-shirts or aprons from foodtee.com? The caption under the apples is "choose me", the one under the berries says "berry good". They have lots of choices on the website.

Reebok Ads

Add these ads to your collection of those that set unrealistic expectations for women's bodies. I agree with this person's comment: "There’s no reason to try to rationalize away the chauvinism in the ads — Reebok doesn’t want you to. From the very text of the website that Meg quotes — “88% of men will be speechless. 78% of women will be jealous” — Reebok makes it clear these shoes are about image and not substance — specifically crafting a woman’s body for men’s eyes. And the main competition they are good for is to continue to foment the battle among women themselves over who better achieves the patriarchal ideal."

More from girlshealth.gov

These are cool ad/posters that could be made into posters for the classroom. Or, have students use these as a sample to make their own ads. More can be found on website.

Another Free Publication/Teacher and Classroom Resources

Teen Survival Guide: Health Tips for On-the-Go Girls. This looks like an interesting booklet for girls, published by girlshealth.gov. The section on reproductive health is simple, clear, and informative. It can be downloaded in PDF format, or ordered for free with a phone call.

The girlshealth.gov website (a division of HHS) also has a lot of links to teacher resources on various health topics. Click here and then explore the link to classroom tools.

Book Recommendation

Quote from Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: "As I write, the FDA has just signed off on a new health claim for Frito-Lay chips on the grounds that eating chips fried in polyunsaturated fats can help you reduce your consumption of saturated fats thereby conferring blessings on your cardiovascular system. So can a notorious junk food pass through the needle eye of nutritionist logic and come out the other side looking like a health food."

Reminds me of the Froot Loop box from yesterday's post. This book contains a different and thoughtful perspective on the meaning of nutrition and health food.

Healthy Froot Loops

My husband went to the grocery store this weekend for the family. Usually he's not very health conscious in his shopping habits, so I was happy to see that he purchased this cereal with high nutritional value! Clearly we can see from the label that our family life is about to get so much better, now that our kids are becoming healthier by eating high fiber Froot Loops! (Why do you think they are "Froot", not "Fruit" Loops?) Actually, I thought this was a great example of the differences between "advertising" and "labeling". Yes, Froot Loops now have more fiber, but are they actually healthy? The advertising suggests that they are, but a look at the long list on ingredients on the label might suggest otherwise. Notice what the #1 ingredient is! The kids in your health class could be assigned to bring in examples of other foods with health benefits labels and discuss why or why not the claims on them have merit, and what other foods might be a better choice. Oatmeal anyone?