Topic: Eat Well

Picky Eating

Lesson Overview

Picky eating often occurs at ages 3 to 5. At this age, children like to explore food rather than eat to it. Usually it is a phase that children go through and then grow out of over time. Children often refuse foods because of color or texture. Teaching them to explore foods and describe the flavors, smells and textures instead of just using words like; “like or dislike” can help improve their willingness to try new things over time.

Introduction

Children don’t always take to new foods easily or right away. Here are some tips that can help a child learn to like new foods. 

  • Offer new foods many times displayed or prepared differently. It may take up to a dozen tries for a child to accept a new food.
  • Small portions = big benefits. Let children try small portions of new foods that you enjoy. Give them a small taste at first and be patient.
  • Be a good role model by trying new foods yourself. Describe tastes, textures and smells.
  • Offer only one new food at a time. Serve something that you know the child likes along with the new food. Offering too many new foods all at once can be overwhelming.
  • Offer new foods first, at the beginning of a meal, when everyone is the hungriest.
  • Serve food plain if that is important to the child. For example, instead of a macaroni casserole, try meatballs, pasta and a vegetable. Also, to keep different foods separated, try plates with sections. For some children the opposite works and serving a new food mixed in with a familiar item is helpful. Get to know the child’s preferences.

Source: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/preschoolers-picky-eating

Activity

  1. Before this session, buy a variety of fruits and vegetables, including some you think young people may have never tried before. Clean and prepare them and bring them with you to the session. Have enough so that each young person can try at least two things.
  2. Before bringing out the food ask young people to tell you their favorite foods.
  3. On a white board or flip chart make a list that includes at least one thing that everyone says they like, leaving space under each one for an additional list of words
  4. Then, one item at a time, ask young people to describe those foods. Encourage them to use words that describe flavor (sweet, spicy, bitter, salty, sour, tangy) and feel or texture (soft, hard, chewy, watery, dry). Write down what they say under each food item.
  5. Bring out the fruits and vegetables you’ve prepared. Encourage each young person to choose two items they’ve never had before (more if you have enough). Ask them to wait before tasting until everyone has theirs.
  6. Encourage youth to try one of their foods. After a few minutes, invite them to describe to you and to the rest of the group the flavor and the texture instead of if they liked it or not.
  7. Make a new list of words or add to your first list. It doesn’t matter if they describe different foods at different times. The idea isn’t to develop one list to describe each food. It is to help youth think of and learn many different ways to describe foods other than just whether they like something or not. This may help them learn to appreciate and even enjoy a variety of flavors and textures.

Conclusion

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish and encourage young people to surprise their families at the next meal they share by using one or more of the words you talked about and learned today to describe taste, texture or smell.

Additional Instructor Resources

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/preschoolers-picky-eating

Phrases that HELP and HINDER

Related Health Powered Kids Blog

Six tips to help picky eaters learn to like new foods

Oversweetened: The Truth About Sugary Drinks

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand the sugar content of popular beverages such as sodas, energy or sports drinks. The youth will measure out granulated white sugar so they can picture the true amount of sugar in these drinks. Young people will think of more healthful options to quench their thirst throughout the day.

Instructor Notes

Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about sugar-sweetened drinks. These facts can be shared with young people during your discussions.

  • Added sugars are sugars and syrups which are added to foods or beverages when they are made. Some foods have sugar that is naturally found in them, such as milk and fruit.
  • Americans are drinking more sweetened beverages than ever before. Some beverages have as many as 500 calories. This can be up to a quarter of a person’s calorie needs for the day just in added sugars.
  • Manufacturers will often target their advertising in hopes that if these drinks are purchased by consumers at an early age they will continue to be loyal buyers of that product into adulthood.
  • The body needs fluids to keep healthy; meeting those needs with sweetened beverages is not a good idea and can lead to unhealthful consequences.

Introduction

  1. Ask the youth about the types of beverages they and other young people typically drink. Common examples include sodas, sports drinks (Gatorade™, Powerade™, Vitamin Water™), energy drinks (Monster™, Red Bull™), and specialty coffee drinks (mochas, smoothies).
  2. Ask the youth if they have ever thought about how much sugar has been added to the beverages? (Added sugar refers to sugars and syrups which are added to foods or beverages when they are made and do not occur naturally in the drink.) Added sugars can also be found in many other foods including cereal, yogurt and granola bars. Read the Sneaky Sugars handout to learn more about sneaky sugars hidden in common foods and beverages.
  3. Ask the youth, why do you think it isn’t good to get too much added sugar? Show pictures or models as visual examples of health consequences as they share. Ask them for their ideas, but make sure they get this message:
    • Too much sugar is not good for your teeth—it can cause cavities.
    • Too much sugar is not good for your heart.
    • Too much added sugar each day can cause you to gain weight if your body doesn’t need those extra calories in one day.
    • We want most of what we eat and drink to be things that are good for our bodies and not fill up on things that are not healthful for us.

Activity

Explain to the youth that in this lesson we are going to see exactly how much added sugar is in some popular beverages. In order to do this we need to understand how to read and get the information we need off of the Nutrition Facts label for each type of drink. Show young people the Nutrition Facts Label handout by projecting the image on the board or printing it out. Point out a few significant statistics from the label (such as serving size, number of servings per container, total carbohydrate and sugars).

Tips to teach:

  • One teaspoon of sugar has 16 calories.
  • One teaspoon of sugar weighs 4 grams.
  1. Ask for volunteers to demonstrate for the large group or divide young people into small groups. The youth will figure out how many teaspoons of added sugar are in some popular drinks. Pass out an empty beverage container, granulated sugar, measuring teaspoon and funnel (or sugar cubes) to the volunteers or small groups.
  2. Have the youth calculate the added sugars by reading the information on the label.
    • Multiply the number of servings in the container by the number of grams per serving.
    • Divide that number by four to get the number of teaspoons of sugar per beverage. Young people may use calculators if they wish.
    • Use the funnel to carefully pour the granulated sugar into the empty bottle. Secure bottle top and pass around to emphasize the look, feel and weight of the amount of sugar dissolved in the typical soft drink.
  3. Ask young people to share their findings with the class. You can see that you can get a lot of added sugar just from drinking popular beverages!
    • How many teaspoons of added sugar do you think might be OK in a healthy daily food plan? Ask them to guess a number, just for fun. The answer is about 3 teaspoons each day.
    • How does that compare with the number you might usually have each day, especially if you are having a beverage with high amounts of added sugar? For most young people it will be a lot less than what they are having each day.
  4. Explain to the young people that our bodies need plenty of fluids, including water, every day but we need to find ways to make sure we’re not getting too much added sugar in our daily food plan. Ask the youth what options they might choose to drink instead of sugary drinks to stay hydrated and keep their bodies healthy? Wait for young people to answer but be sure they understand these items:
    • Remind young people that water is the best choice to drink throughout the day for thirst and staying hydrated. Water gets the job done. It quenches your thirst, keeps your skin healthy and glowing, and won’t cause tooth decay, chronic (long-lasting) diseases or gaining high amounts of weight.
    • Milk or a milk substitute is a healthful choice with meals and snacks because it’s full of nutrients your body needs.
    • 100% fruit juice doesn’t have any added sugars and can be healthful if you drink small amounts, no more than 4 to 6 ounces each day. (100% fruit juice doesn’t have all of the fiber and nutrients as whole fruit so it’s best to get most of your fruit servings by eating whole fruits instead).
    • What about diet pop and other diet drinks? Although they have no added sugars, they don’t have any nutrients that are good for our body either, so it is best to avoid filling up on diet drinks that do nothing to keep us healthy.

Conclusion

Challenge the youth to read the nutrition label of the next sweetened beverage they want to drink. How many calories and grams of sugar are in it? Remember how the white granulated sugar looks when it’s measured out, teaspoon by teaspoon. See if you can think of a more healthful option to quench your thirst!

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can talk about alternatives to sugary drinks from their pantries at home.

Additional Instructor Resources

MyPlate and Yours Too!

Lesson Overview 

This lesson helps young people get acquainted with MyPlate and how it can be used as a visual tool for a lifetime of healthy eating. They will explore the food groups that are represented on MyPlate and analyze a meal of their own by drawing it on a paper plate. Finally, youth will reflect on the food they eat and how they can make more balanced meal choices in the future.

Introduction

Ask the youth: Why do we need to learn about the right foods to eat, and how much food to eat?

Allow the young people time to give their answers, but make sure they understand:

  • Eating healthful food keeps our brain, heart, muscles, and bones growing and developing well. The right amount of food helps us feel good and have plenty of energy. It even helps us learn better in school.
  • If we eat too much of certain foods and not enough of others, we could end up hurting instead of helping our bodies.

Tell the youth that one way to learn about healthful foods, and healthful amounts of food, is with MyPlate.

Ask the young people: What do you know about MyPlate?

MyPlate is a tool that helps show us what kinds of foods we should eat every day and how much of those foods we should eat. Its message is simple: eating a variety of colorful foods from the five food groups at each meal helps our bodies stay healthy.

Note: Instructors should be aware of young people with special nutrition needs including food allergies and intolerances. Instructors should clarify to those young people that it is okay that they follow special food guidelines set by their parents and/or doctors.

Activity: Getting to know MyPlate

Explore each section of section of MyPlate on the interactive whiteboard lesson (see What You Need) or the ChooseMyPlate.Gov website. Click on each of the sections and read some examples aloud. Discuss the information about the foods included in the different food groups.

  • Click on the Grains section, to see the differences between whole and refined grains. Emphasize that we want at least half of our grains to come from whole, unprocessed sources.

  • Click on the Vegetables section to see the five subgroups of vegetables. Emphasize that the deeper, darker colored vegetables will be higher in nutritional value.

  • Click on the Fruits section to see whether frozen or canned fruits are okay, and also to see whether or not 100% fruit juice counts as a fruit.

  • Click on the Dairy section to see what kind of dairy foods are best to choose.

  • Click on the Protein Foods section to see what kinds of choices are best and how to get variety.

  • Fats and Oils (butter, mayonnaise, oils found in fried foods) are not considered a food group, but are part of one’s daily food intake.

  • If using the interactive whiteboard lesson, practice by sorting the foods into the food groups. Can you name other foods to put in the different sections of MyPlate?

Activity: Color Your Plate

Just for fun, let’s think about a meal we’ve eaten recently. It’s time to bring out the paper plates! Pass out paper plates to young people.

Ask young people to draw, list, or cut and paste the foods they had for one meal on their paper plate. Remind them to include drinks.  For example, if they had a grilled cheese sandwich and milk, those items could be listed, drawn, or cut and glued onto the plate.

When the group is finished, review the paper plate activity and invite young people to share with the class what is on their plate:

  • How does your plate compare with MyPlate?

  • What food item could you add to include more food groups?

  • What food/drink could you have less of or substitute with another food/drink to make it more like MyPlate?

  • Are there any food items on your plate that are not part of the five food groups?  (fats, oils, added sugars)

Remind the youth that eating foods not in the five food groups is OK in small amounts as long as they are eating most of their foods for the day from the five food groups.

Conclusion

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish so that families can continue discussing healthy meals at home.

Additional Instructor Resources

More Milk, Please!

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people visualize how much milk they should drink each day by pouring 8 ounces into each of three glasses. The youth will complete a milk-themed maze activity. Optionally, the young people can photograph themselves with milk mustaches to remind them to drink milk each day.

Introduction

  1. Talk with the youth about why drinking milk is good for them.
    Drinking milk will:

    • give your body important nutrients like calcium and vitamin D to help your bones grow strong
    • give your body protein to help build strong muscles.
  2. Ask the youth, what could happen if your body doesn’t get enough calcium?
    Answer: Your bones can get weak and could easily break.
    If you’re allergic to cow’s milk, you can try fortified “milk” made from soy, rice, coconut or almonds. If that doesn’t sound too good, you can also:

    • drink calcium-enriched orange juice
    • eat vegetables rich in calcium, such as cooked broccoli and spinach.
  3. How much milk should you have each day?
    Answer: For most kids your age, three 8-ounce glasses of milk each day is enough to give your body all the calcium and protein it needs.

Activity

  1. To show how much milk a young person should drink each day, pour 8 ounces of milk into three glasses.
  2. Ask for feedback from the youth: Are they surprised with the amount? Did they think they needed to drink more or less?
  3. Give each young person a glass or carton of milk and ask them to try and make a milk mustache. (Offer a milk substitute such as soy milk for young people who cannot have cow’s milk.)
  4. Optional: Take a group photo of the young people with their milk mustaches to hang in your classroom as a reminder to drink milk every day.
  5. Have the youth complete the milk maze.

Conclusion

Remind the young people that drinking milk is good for their bones, muscles, and overall health. Ask them to count how many 8 ounce glasses of milk they have to drink today. Will they get to 3 glasses? Count again tomorrow and remember to get enough milk every day!

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can continue to talk about drinking milk getting enough calcium at home.

Related Health Powered Kids Blog

Healthy snacking: Moving beyond milk and cookies

Additional Instructor Resources

Milk Matters

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand the health benefits of low-fat milk by analyzing nutrition labels.

Instructor Notes

Beformide facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about low-fat milk products. These facts can be shared with kids and parents during your discussions.

  • The 2015 Dietary Guidelines recommends Americans switch to fat-free or low-fat milk. According to researchers, fat-free and low-fat milk is essential to children and adolescents’ development and overall wellness. In fact, fat-free and low-fat milk and milk products provide four of the five “nutrients of concern” that children don’t get enough of: calcium, potassium, Vitamin D and magnesium.
  • White milk comes in four varieties: whole (full fat), 2%, 1% (low-fat) and Skim (no fat). Flavored milk also comes in different varieties such as low-fat and fat-free.
  • Who should drink whole milk? Answer: Children 12 months to 24 months (1-2 years old). After that, kids may switch to 2%, low-fat or skim milk. (As long as the child isn’t gaining weight quickly, they can drink 2% milk.)
  • Babies (0-12 months) should drink breast milk or infant formula as cow’s milk isn’t digested well by babies under 12 months, and it lacks essential nutrients.
  • Some children are allergic to some nutrients/items found in milk, like protein. A milk allergy is an overreaction of the immune system to the protein found in milk and can trigger a range of symptoms from mild (rash, hives, swelling, etc.) to severe symptoms (trouble breathing, wheezing, loss of consciousness, etc.) This means that they may need to choose a milk substitute. Make sure to choose a milk alternative that is fortified with 30% DV (Daily Value) of calcium. If you have young people in your class that fall into this category, ask them to complete the activity with the understanding that this may not specifically apply to them.
  • Other children may have an intolerance to lactose found in milk, which means they are missing the enzyme lactase, which breaks down lactose, a sugar found in milk and dairy products. This results in the inability to digest milk or other dairy products which may cause symptoms such as nausea, cramps, gas, bloating and diarrhea. Lactose intolerance can cause great discomfort, but it is not life threatening.

Activity

  1. Ask the youth: What kind of milk do you drink? If they don’t know, show them examples of cartons of each type to see if that helps them identify the type of milk they usually drink.
  2. Let’s figure out which type of milk may be the healthiest for us to drink by looking at what’s on the Nutrition Facts labels of four different types of milk. Pass out the Milk Nutrition Facts Labels worksheet and the Compare Milk Activity worksheet you printed at the beginning of the lesson. Tell the youth to use the milk Nutrition Fact labels to fill in the chart and answer the questions on the worksheet.
  3. Ask young people to share what they learned about the type of milk they drink.
  4. Review answers to questions with the youth using the Instructors Answer Key.

Conclusion

Encourage kids and parents alike who don’t already drink 1% or skim milk to work towards that as a goal. Tell them if they don’t like it at first, try mixing 1/2 their milk with the lower fat milk, changing it gradually each week until you are drinking only the lower fat milk. Most people really do get used to the skim milk after awhile. The same idea works for flavored milk. If you are used to drinking flavored milk, try mixing 1/2 white skim or lower fat milk until you get used to not having the added sweetness.

Or you might want to try this approach: If you usually drink whole milk, switch to 2% by the end of one week, 1% by the end of two weeks, and skim by the end of three weeks. If you usually drink 2%, switch to 1% by the end of one week, and skim milk by the end of two weeks.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can continue discussing their milk choices at home.

Additional Instructor Resources

Marketing Mania

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people discover “tricks of the trade” in food and beverage marketing. They practice comparing the messages conveyed through advertisements with the nutrition information available about different products.

Introduction

Explain to the youth that eating healthful foods is important to a person’s growth, development and overall well-being. Their eating behaviors in childhood will carry over into adulthood and contribute to their long-term health and risk for chronic (long-lasting) disease. One of the driving factors influencing eating behaviors and food choices of youth is food advertising. Food advertisers spend large amounts of money targeting children, in an attempt to build brand loyalty and to persuade them to desire a particular food product. It is important that children begin to develop the skills to navigate this complex media-saturated world they live in.

Activity: Exploring Advertisements

  1. Advertisements are all around us. Ask young people to name some places they might encounter advertisements.
  2. Show young people a variety of food and drink packages, print ads, and video clips. If possible, have multiple examples for several different products or families of products.
  3. Other popular methods of marketing foods might be sweepstakes, contests or “clubs.” If one of these methods is used to market a product, then they must adhere to these rules:
    • If there is a prize, it should be clearly presented.
    • If there is an opportunity to win a prize, the odds of winning should be clearly stated. Share an example or two if available.
  4. Ask young people to compare various marketing strategies used to sell the products. For each example, ask the following questions. (Depending on the size of your group, you may want to split the youth into small groups to each answer the questions about a different advertisement. If time permits, small groups may present their responses to the entire group.)
    • What methods were used to promote and sell the products? (e.g., animation, music, bright colors or celebrities)
    • How do these methods affect your thoughts and feelings about these products? Do the props make the product more interesting?
    • What is the message? (e.g., you’ll be stronger, smarter, have more fun if you eat/drink the product)
    • Do you believe it?
    • How does the portion size of the product shown compare to what a single serving might be? (e.g., sports drink packaged in 20 oz bottle is actually 2.5 servings)
    • How does the suggested or advertised portion compare to the amount you or your family/friends would usually consume? (They are likely to consume the entire packaged/portioned amount.)

Optional Interactive Activity

Young people can practice marketing “tricks of the trade” on CoCo’s AdverSmarts Interactive Food Marketing Game. See additional game formats below.

Conclusion

Learning how to be savvy consumers is a skill that will serve young people well throughout their lifetimes and in many different contexts. Encourage them to pay particular attention in the days ahead to the messages that are all around them, and whether or not those messages are accurate or misleading.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can practice spotting the youth-targeted marketing all around us.

Related Health Powered Kids Blog(s)

Additional Instructor Resources on Food Marketing to Children

Love Your Lunch!

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand how to choose a healthful meal when eating school lunch. Youth will draw their lunch choices on paper trays, then examine the drawings to see if their meal represents the five food groups.

Instructor Notes

School lunches play an important part in meeting a child’s daily nutritional needs. Since most elementary age children need about 1,500 to 2,000 calories each day, the school lunch helps them meet that goal. Often young people will limit their food choices from the school lunch menu due to a lack of food/nutrition knowledge as well as some “selective” eating patterns. It is important to introduce young people at an early age to the concept of balance in eating. By choosing a variety of colorful foods from the five food groups (vegetables, fruits, dairy, grains and protein) they will have a healthful meal.

Activity: Love Your Lunch

This activity explores the current choices young people make at lunch by learning about the five food groups.

  • Pass out a lunch tray template to each young person.  Ask the youth to fill in their lunch tray worksheet with their favorite school lunch menu food choices by coloring food items or cutting out pictures of food items from magazines.
  • When the youth are finished drawing, review the lunch tray activity and ask young people the following questions:
    • How many young people have less than five colors on their tray?
    • How many have more than five colors?
  • Explain that it is important to have many colors on their trays. Why do you think this might be true? It means that their lunch is more likely to include a variety of foods from the five different food groups which makes it a healthful meal.
  • Introduce the youth to the five food groups: vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy, and protein. Show food models, the resources at ChooseMyPlate.gov or pictures of foods representing each of the five food groups.
    • How many different food groups do you have on your lunch tray?  If time permits, ask if young people want to share the food groups they have included on their lunch tray. Give positive feedback to the healthful five food group choices the youth have listed or drawn.
    • Ask young people what food item they could add or change the next time they go through the lunch line to make it an even healthier meal that includes more of the five food groups.
  • Open the Online Interactive Lesson and Activity to review the five food groups. Young people can practice choosing more healthful foods for their bag lunch or school lunch.

Food Gallery
From ChooseMyPlate.gov

Conclusion

Conclude the lesson by handing out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can continue talking about healthful food choices at home.

Health Powered Kids Blog

Back to school means helping kids choose a healthy lunch

Additional Instructor Resources

It’s Mealtime! Relax and Enjoy

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand how to eat slowly and mindfully. The youth will practice by paying close attention to smells, texture and taste while eating a healthful snack.

Instructor Notes

Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about mindful eating. These facts can be shared with young people during your discussions.

Research points to at least three good health reasons to eat slowly and mindfully. These are:

  1. Healthy weight. There is good evidence that eating slowly leads to eating less which leads to a healthier weight.
  2. Better digestion. It takes our bodies time to break down and absorb the food we have eaten. Start the process off for better digestion by chewing your food well, which in turn leads to slower eating. More time between bites also gives our bodies’ time to react to what we’ve already consumed.
  3. Less stress. Eating slowly and paying attention to our eating, can be a great form of relaxation and mindfulness. When we are in the moment, breathing deeply and fully, rather than rushing through a meal, we are taking good care of our whole selves, not just our bodies.

Activity

Give each young person a sample of one of the snacks you brought, but tell them not to eat anything yet.

  1. Ask them to look at the food item and describe how it looks, such as bright, foamy, and red.
  2. Now ask them to smell the food. How does it smell? For example, sweet and fragrant.
  3. Tell them to take a normal bite of the food, but hold it in their mouths without chewing. After about 15 seconds, have the young people start to chew, but ask them to chew slowly.
  4. How does it taste? For example, sweet or tart.
  5. What does it feel like in their mouths? For example, soft or crisp.
  6. Repeat above steps for each snack item you brought food so the youth can see the differences in look, smell, feel, and taste.
  7. Explain that when we eat very quickly we miss out on a lot of what’s good about food, such as the taste, texture, smell, and enjoyment of the food we are eating.
  8. We may even discover that we enjoy or like a food that we hadn’t eaten before.
  9. Let the youth finish the snack, encouraging them to enjoy it slowly.
  10. Ask them at the end what they noticed during the exercise, this will help them process their thoughts better.

Conclusion

It takes our bodies time to break down food and take from it what we need. Remind young people to chew their food well and eat slowly. More time between bites gives time for our bodies to react to what we’ve already consumed, so we can digest and absorb our food better.

Encourage young people to practice eating slowly at home using the tips in the Healthy Families Newsletter.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes these tips, so that families can continue discussing healthy eating habits at home.

Related Health Powered Kids Blog

Relax and enjoy your food

Additional Instructor Resources

Hungry for Breakfast

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand the importance of breakfast. The youth will think about good food choices by discussing “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle and singing The Breakfast Song.

Instructor Notes

Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about the importance of breakfast for children. These facts can be shared with young people during your discussions.

  • If young children learn important concepts about eating breakfast it will lay a foundation of eating right for years to come. Studies have shown that eating breakfast improves a child’s concentration and mental performance.
  • Young people who skip breakfast are less focused and alert and often too tired to complete morning tasks.
  • Young people who are hungry experience more learning difficulties as compared to well-nourished children.
  • The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says that children who eat a healthful, well-balanced breakfast are more likely to:
    • meet their daily nutrient requirements
    • have better concentration
    • have better problem-solving skills
    • have better hand-eye coordination
    • stay alert
    • be creative
    • miss fewer days of school
    • be more physically active.

Activity: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Read the book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle.

  1. After reading the book, talk with the young people about all the foods the caterpillar ate. These include apples, pears, oranges, plums and strawberries. Talk about how fruits are good, healthful foods that give our bodies energy. Then talk about all the junk foods the caterpillar ate, such as chocolate cake, ice cream and candy. What happened to the caterpillar after he ate those types of foods? Why?
  2. Ask young people to raise their hands if they had breakfast this morning. Let a few share what they ate.
  3. Tell the young people that today we will be talking about breakfast as one of the most important meals of the day. Breakfast is the first chance to get nourishing food into their bodies and their brains for a great start to the day.
  4. What does it mean to be hungry? Let the youth answer and have them give examples of how they feel and look when they are hungry. Explain that it would be hard to think, learn and play if they felt hungry and tired. That is how they may feel if they don’t eat breakfast.

Activity: Breakfast Song

Ask the youth what happens when we feed our body with nourishing foods for breakfast vs. eating no breakfast or a breakfast without healthful foods. Invite young people to stand to learn a song that will help us remember what foods to eat for breakfast to help our brains and our bodies start the day!

Teach young people the lyrics to the Breakfast Song.

Conclusion

Remind young people that what they eat in the morning has the power to energize them throughout the day. Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can continue discussing the importance of breakfast at home.

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Additional Instructor Resources

How Hungry Am I?

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people think about the ways their bodies give them signals telling them when they need to eat. They will use a worksheet to track their hunger before and after a snack and learn that tracking your hunger can keep you from overeating.

Introduction

Ask the youth, what does a baby do when it is hungry? Usually he or she cries or whimpers. A dog might do the same thing…bark or whine to let us know it’s time to eat.

Inform the youth that our bodies let us know in much the same way when we are starting to feel hungry. How? Maybe our stomach growls, we get a headache, we become cranky or irritable, or feel tired or weak. It takes about 10-15 minutes once we have started eating for our bodies to notice the change. The feeling of fullness is the result of your brain reacting to chemicals and hormones that are released when you eat. Your brain can take up to 20 minutes to register these chemicals before you are signaled you are getting full. Therefore, it’s important to eat slowly enough to give ourselves time to adjust. Our bodies send signals that we’ve had enough, like our belly actually feeling a bit more filled up. If we eat too much too fast we can’t notice those cues until it is too late and we feel extremely full and uncomfortable.

Here’s a simple way to gauge before, during and after eating what state we’re in:

😐 = Pretty hungry, my stomach feels empty

🙂 = Just right! Not too hungry or too full; satisfied

🙁 = Too full, I ate too much

This language of hunger is different from the cravings we feel when we smell our favorite food or see something delicious looking in a magazine. That’s our thoughts telling us, “Wow…I sure would like to taste that,” no matter whether our body is hungry or not.

Being hungry is different from craving and we can teach ourselves to better listen to our bodies to know the difference.

Activity

  1. Ask the young people to make a fist. Tell them that their stomachs are about the same size as their fist.
  2. Ask the following questions to further explore the topic of hunger:
    • How would your stomach feel if you put too much food in – two or three times the size of your fist? (Sore, bloated, sticking out)
    • How would your stomach feel if you didn’t put enough food in or if you missed having a meal or a snack? (Pain, rumbling)
    • Would it feel this way if you saw a piece of cake on the counter that you thought looked really delicious? Or if you smelled your favorite meal cooking? (You might feel these things for a short while when you are having a craving, but if you take a few minutes to pay attention they will go away. A craving won’t make you feel hunger that lasts.)
    • What if you put just the right amount of food in your stomach— about the same amount as your fist? How would it feel? (Content, not stuffed, good, nice, satisfied)
  3. Let’s enjoy a snack in an amount that is a little bit smaller than our fists, or the size of our stomachs, but let’s first think about how hungry we actually are so that we don’t eat too much and get those uncomfortable feelings.
  4. Pass out the Kids Hunger Tracker worksheet. Ask the youth to fill in the first line, writing down today’s date and then drawing the appropriate face in the “Before the Meal” column.
  5. Then pass out the snack. Encourage young people to eat slowly and chew the food well. Have them notice the flavor and taste and how their bodies feel. Encourage them to stop when they feel satisfied regardless of whether the food is gone.
  6. After the snack, have them complete the final column on the worksheet.

Conclusion

Encourage young people to use the worksheet over the next several days to track their hunger and see what they notice. The more they practice this mindful approach, the more attuned they will become to their bodies’ food needs.

Related Health Powered Kids Blog

‘Tis the season to take note of your hunger cues

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can continue discussing the ways that young people know they are hungry and when they have eaten enough.