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?

Childhood Obesity - Type 2 Diabetes

Interesting ABC news report highlighting childhood obesity & rising rates of type 2 diabetes in children.

Teens Speak

This great publication for teens can be downloaded in its entirety from the NYC health department website. Here is a sample page with recipes for teens to try, but the other pages are good as well. There are sections on soda and fast food, healthy eating tips, healthy weight, and more. The pages are colorful and well-designed and would make good posters. NYC has also recently begun an ad campaign about the excess sugar found in soft drinks. These ads would also make good posters for a classroom.

Nutrition Action Healthletter

The Nutrition Action Healthletter, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest is a fabulous publication filled with all sorts of great information like this list of best and worst foods. It is well-worth the $10 annual subscription price, but if you don't want to pay for it, you can still access valuable information from past issues on line. You can find their archived articles here:http://www.cspinet.org/nah/archives.html. Look at the articles under the heading "Right Stuff vs. Food Porn". Interesting! This is one of my favorite websites!

Free Publications

This link is to a listing of free publications distributed by the Weight-control Information Network. You can download them in PDF format or call them and they will send up to 25 to you for FREE! I ordered "Take Charge of Your Health! A Guide For Teenagers!" for the class. When I called, I had no problem getting through to a real person, who was happy to send the order to me. There is some great stuff here!

Interactive DRI (Daily Reference Intakes)

Enter age, sex, height, weight and activity level into this interactive program to calculate BMI and Daily Calorie Needs. You can also check recommended requirements for macronutrients (carbs, fiber, protein, etc), vitamins, and minerals. Students could compare a day's diet (or a meal) with their daily needs. They could also compare their personal daily recommendations with the standard that is used for labeling.

Interactive computer activities from the UEN website for grades 7-12, including a Meal Planner, Rate Your Restaurant Diet, Dining Decisions, BMI Calculator, and Food Pyramid Challenge. These may be good activities for homework assignments.

Portion Distortion Powerpoint

CAlled Portion Distortion, this powerpoint "quiz" compares today's food portion sizes with typical portion sizes from 20 years ago. Also shows how much activity would be required to work off different calorie intakes. Highly recommended!