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March 2001: Nutrition
Just in time for National Nutrition Month--check out these interdisciplinary activity ideas, TV programs, and online resources you can use to explore good nutrition! Return in April for ideas relating to Holocaust Remembrance.
Teaching Ideas
Food Pyramid Diary
If "you are what you eat," where does that leave your students? Ask them to check up on their nutritional habits by keeping a "food diary" for three days--noting everything they eat or drink (including gum). Students should be certain to include the number or approximate size of meal servings. After three days, students should tabulate their diary entries. How many servings of breads? Dairy? Fruits and vegetables? Ask students to take their information and draw a nutrition pyramid--one for each of the three days in their diary. In it, they should make the layers of the pyramid correspond to the types of foods they ate that day (those with the most servings form the base, and the fewest servings, the tip).
Compare students' food pyramids to the real food pyramid, which may be accessed online at the USDA Web site.
Ask students to answer the following questions:
- Were you short in any areas? Day 1, Day 2, Day 3? If so which ones and by how much?
- Were you over the minimum recommended amounts in any areas? Day 1, 2, 3? If so, in which ones and by how much?
- Is there anything you noticed that seemed to be a pattern for those three pyramids?
- In which areas were you deficient for all 3 days?
- What changes should you be making in your diet on a daily basis?
More advanced students might investigate the following questions:
- What are the total calories and the calories from fat for each day in your 3 day diet?
- For each day, are you within the recommended limit of calories from fat of 30%?
- How did you figure that?
As a follow up, students may want to learn more by visiting the Frontline: Fat Web site.
Body Image: A Look In The Mirror
Your students may have heard of celebrities who have battled eating disorders--among them, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Tori Amos, Paula Abdul, Princess Diana, and Lucy Lawless. Men are also susceptible to eating disorders like anorexia and bulemia, particularly athletes who are trying to cut weight. It's important that your students know that eating disorders are quite common, particularly among adolescents. How common? And what causes eating disorders?
Advertisers and the entertainment industry have come under fire from health care professionals who believe ads, movies, and TV shows promote unrealistic and unhealthy ideas about body image. What do your students think about this?
Help students create an anonymous survey to determine one or more of the following:
- How many students in your community have had eating disorders?
- How do students perceive their own bodies?
- What is the "ideal weight"?
- Which celebrities do they think look healthiest and/or most attractive?
Results from the survey may be tabulated and presented in a report to the school newspaper, community health organizations, or other interested parties. Your students may also be interested in investigating what kind of statistics the federal government keeps on adolescents and eating disorders; start at the Centers for Disease Control Web site. For more information about eating disorders, check out NOVA: Dying To Be Thin.
IdahoPTV & PBS Online Resources: Sites to See
Older Students:
Body and Soul: Mindful Eating
http://www.pbs.org/bodyandsoul/208/ This site focuses on our relationship to food and abuse of it (overeating, bingeing, etc.)
Class in America: You Are What You Eat
http://www.pbs.org/classinamerica/resources/index.html
Explore how social class affects nutritional requirements and diet.
Frontline: Fat
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fat/
Find out how modern life, biology and genetics influence our weight. Get information about obesity, surgical remedies for obesity, and hear what the experts have to say about weight loss and gain.
Healthweek
http://www.pbs.org/healthweek/
This news show focuses on health-related topics in the news (see complete transcripts of nutrition-related shows at http://www.pbs.org/healthweek/order.htm#nutrition).
NOVA: Dying To Be Thin
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/thin/
A rich, recent site dealing with adolescents and eating disorders. (*Note: The entire program is available for viewing online, and there is a special online game called "Body Needs" that would be great to work in for upper elementary and middle school students--it's at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/thin/needs.html)
NOVA: Shackleton's Antarctic Odyssey: Meal of Endurance
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/classroom/w4meal.html
Analyze caloric and nutritional value of foods eaten by Antarctic explorers, and compare their diet to your own.
Regina's Vegetarian Table
http://www.pbs.org/regina/
How does our diet help us ward off illness? What are the special dietary needs of vegetarians? Where can I find recipes for really good vegetarian meals?
A Science Odyssey
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/medhealth.html
Read about 20th century advances in health and medicine, including nutrition-related issues like Pellagra and Diabetes.
Stealing Time: The New Science of Aging
http://www.pbs.org/stealingtime/
What do restricted calorie diets and nutrition have to do with a longer life span?
Scientific American Frontiers:
About All You Can Eat
http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript502.htm and http://www.pbs.org/safarchive/4_class/45_pguides/pguide_502/4552_idx.html
Learn about counting calories, food at Plimoth Plantation in colonial times, an obesity study in Mexico, how foods are processed or treated to make them more digestible, meet mushroom connoisseurs, and learn about pet food nutrition.
A Heart of Titanium
http://www.pbs.org/saf/4_class/45_pguides/pguide_401/4541_titanium.html
Math challenges stress the importance of a low-fat diet in cardiovascular health.
Never Say Die: Eat Less--Live Longer
http://www.pbs.org/saf/4_class/44_guides/guide_1003/44103_eat.html
Learn about calories and nutrients, and make a simple calorimeter.
Smarter Food Processing Techniques
http://www.pbs.org/saf/4_class/45_pguides/pguide_302/4532_food.html
How much do you know about the food you eat? Take the quiz and try out the extension.
Younger Students:
Arthur: Potluck Pyramid
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/arthur/teachers/activities/web/potluck_pyramid.html
Creating a food pyramid helps students plan meals and gain nutritional awareness.
Arthur: Dad's Super Snack
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/arthur/teachers/activities/learn_to_read/dads_super.html
Brainstorm descriptive adjectives and plan nutritious meals.
Food For The Ancestors
http://www.pbs.org/foodancestors/midplan.html
Compare Mexican food to American food, and relate the USDA's Food Pyramid to indigenous Mexican foods.
Mister Rogers Neighborhood: Recipes
http://www.pbs.org/rogers/R_house/recipe2.htm
Help preschoolers develop good eating habits and share in household routines with these kid-friendly recipes. (*Note: each time you "open" the refrigerator, a new recipe will appear.)
Newton's Apple: Body Fat: Is all fat bad? What's the best way to lose fat?
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/newtons/14/bodyfat03.html
Students plan a nutritional diet for a three-day backpacking trip, taking into account calorie requirements.
Newton's Apple: Dairy Farm: How much milk does one cow produce?
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/newtons/11/dairyfrm.html
Calculate the amount of human food one cow can produce.
Newton's Apple: Diet and Nutrition: Which foods are good for you?
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/newtons/10/diet.html
Investigate the nutritional value of fast food.
Newton's Apple: Proteins: What are proteins and why are they important?
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/newtons/15/proteins.html
Build a model of a protein out of everyday materials.
PBS Mathline: Health: Comparing Calories
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/mathline/concepts/health/activity2.shtm
Create box and whisker plots comparing calorie information from different fast food chains.
Winter Games Cyberschool: Extreme Nutrition
http://pbscyberschool.pbs.org/teach/lesson61_1.html
Students develop a one-week menu for a competitive snowboarder.
What's Cookin'
http://pbscyberschool.pbs.org/teach/lesson72_1.html
Students research the metabolic requirements of athletes and publish an online cookbook.
IdahoPTV & PBS Programs to see in March!
Reading Rainbow The Milk Makers
Airs Monday, March 19 at 2:30/1:30 p.m. MT/PT
It’s fresh and cold, foamy and white, and one of nature’s most nutritious foods—milk! Everyone learns about this delicious liquid as this book explains the process of how cows produce milk and how it is processed before being delivered to stores. LeVar visits California’s dairy country where he receives a lesson on milking a cow by hand, as well as an introduction to the modern way of milking and feeding 600 cows. Viewers get a factory tour and see how cheese is made.
Reading Rainbow Germs Make Me Sick!
Airs Wednesday, March 21 at 2:30/1:30 p.m. MT/PT
Our world is shared with millions of micro-organisms. In this feature book they explain what germs are, how bacteria and viruses affect the human body, and how the body fights against them. Using a microscope LeVar discovers what germs really look like and talks to lab scientists about germs, and habits that can keep us healthy. A visit to an organic farm illustrates how micro-organisms are important to growing food.
Scientific American Frontiers The Bionic Body
Airs Tuesday, March 26 at 7:00 p.m.
Host Alan Alda examines the re-engineering of the human body, including recent advances in nerve regeneration; artificial nerve stimulation on paralysis victims; and electrode and silicon chip implants.
NOVA: Survivor MD
Airs Tuesday March 27 at 8:00 p.m
This program is the first in a series of three follow-ups to a two-part NOVA series that first aired in 1991 titled "So You Want to Be a Doctor," which followed the daily lives of a group of medical students. Now, NOVA revisits the same individuals. Some dropped out to pursue other career paths. The ones who did go on to become doctors tell how their demanding careers have affected their lives, revealing stories of great accomplishment but also of strained personal relationships. Episode one, titled "Tattooed Doctor," revisits the tattoo-covered student from the original program that many people expected to drop out. Proving everyone wrong, we learn that he now has successful career as head of an ER.
Frontline: Organ Farm
Airs Tuesday March 27 at 10:00 p.m.
Xenotransplantation is the experimental process of transplanting genetically modified pig cells and whole organs into human beings. While a scientific breakthrough in this process could offer hope to millions of desperately ill patients, such procedures could introduce new infectious agents into the human population, posing a public health risk. Do the benefits outweigh the still-unknown dangers? This episode offers the first television investigation into this multibillion dollar industry.
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