UPD8

Healthy Eating

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Type: Activity
Learning Strategy: Information retrieval
Topic: Food & digestion

Poor diet and lack of exercise mean that obesity is reaching epidemic proportions in the UK - alarmingly, that includes children. Childhood obesity is constantly in the news. Poor nutrition correlates strongly with the incidence of cardiovascular problems in middle age, and obesity is the second biggest risk factor for some types of cancer. The government is concerned. Official guideline daily amounts (GDA's) for the sugar, fat, and salt contents of young people's diets are due to be released. Blue Peter will also be running a 'healthy eating, healthy living' campaign this year. This activity familiarises students with the basics of healthy eating, and makes them more aware of food labeling. The topic is being revisited to support inclusive science, and students with special educational needs.

This UPD8 was devised by the Buckinghamshire SEN Science Liaison Group:
Chair: Julie Smith – Stony Dean School, Amersham
Su Hassall – Bucks SEN Consultant
Karen Parks- Bucks Science Consultant
Andy Randall – Wendover House
Sylvia Barnes – Stony Dean School
Liz Bell – Little Chalfont Primary School
Princess Patterson – Sir William Ramsay Upper School
Kay Budge – Sir William Ramsay Upper School.

Published: 20th February 2006
Reviews & Comments: 18

Learning objectives

Students will learn
-about the nutritional content of some popular foods
-about their own dietary needs
-about combining different foods to produce a balanced diet
Students will
-present and interpret data from secondary sources
-investigate a question about nutrition using secondary sources of information.

Try the activity

• Activity sheet
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• Teachers notes
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Curriculum link

Running the activity

For SEN students allow one lesson to make food data cards, and another to use them for a variety of reinforcement games. Page 1 is a 5 minute starter activity to set the context and get students engaged. Students could discuss the question in pairs, or have 'show me' boards to write their answers on. A class vote could be taken to see who would eat a deep fried mars bar.

Page 2 introduces the main activity. If an interactive whiteboard is not available, colour copies could be printed off and laminated for future use. It will need to be read through and discussed with the students. The values given are for 11-14 year olds, and are different for boys and girls. It should be emphasised that foods aren't really 'good' or 'bad' but you need a balanced diet with the right amount of each nutrient. Students then look at the food data sheets (Pages 3 and 4), and one or two foods could be discussed. They provide the information for the completion of the 'Top Trumps' frames on Page 5. Students draw foods on the plates and fill in the missing data. They also colour circles next to the data red, amber or green depending on the quantity shown. Pupils could work independently, or in groups. More able students could take information from real food packaging, and draw the picture to go with it.

The cards can be cut out, and used to play 'Top Trumps.' The rules will need to be fixed beforehand e.g. lower values for fat, sugar or salt win over higher values. Energy values are trumps. Alternatively, students could use calculators to work out how many portions of the food they could eat without exceeding the guidelines on page 2. As an extension, students could challenge advertising by comparing the labels on normal and 'lite' versions of food. Suitable questions to pose are: is a 'lite' version really that healthy; how do the nutrients compare; is the 'lite' version still packed with high fat /salt /sugar?

As a plenary activity students could go back to the deep fried Mars and the vote again. Anyone who has changed their mind could be asked why. Alternatively, students could be given one card each and told to move to a 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' group.

Further information
The guideline daily amounts are taken from the proposed government figures. The values for younger students are the same for girls and boys:

4-6 yrs. 7-10yrs
Energy (kJ) 6,700 7,500
Fat (g) 60 70
Salt (g) 3 5
Sugar (g) 85 95

The figures for saturated fat have been omitted as it will overcomplicate the lesson. The food data in the activity are the typical amounts found in the portions illustrated. They do not all refer to 100g of food like the figures used on food labels. Food is officially classed as high in fat if it contains more than 20g of fat per 100g. A figure of 10g per portion is used in this activity as a simplification.

The activity could be extended by linking diet to exercise in collaboration with the PE department using pedometers, gym equipment, or heart monitors.

Web links

News links

Eatwell

A fact packed site, with a mine of information about healthy eating in 'kid speak'. There are also downloadable 'movies.' The site is very easy to use. There is advice from the FA about eating well for sport. Other topics covered are 'eating for exams' and 'eat yourself gorgeous!'

Interactive food label

A large interactive label that can be displayed on an interactive whiteboard.

British Nutrition Foundation

The British Nutrition Foundation web site – most of the information supports food technology, but it links with the science curriculum. There is a lot of up-to-date information for reference and there are some nice SEN worksheets – many cross-curricular with PSHE.

Kraft foods

There are many company web sites with useful information and this is one of the best. It does promote its own products of course, but there are calculators for BMI etc.

Blue Peter

A new recipe appears every day and they are running a healthy lifestyle competition.

BBC

The news article covers the new food labelling system proposed by a number of major food companies. It contains a video clip and a comment form for readers to respond to the question 'Do you find food labelling confusing?'

Recipe Website

Deep fried Mars Bar recipe!

Reviews & Comments

Write your online review to share your feedback and classroom tips with other teachers. How well does it work, how engaging is it, how did you use it, and how could it be improved?

Bush Tucker Challenge

Jun 2nd, 2010

Great for boys - The one I had work on it today loved the idea of grubs for Celebrities!! - was great for being involved and for a cross curriculum activity - science to numeracy

Reviewer: Marianne Fernandes

Healthy Eating review

Apr 25th, 2010

this activity was very useful and the students enjoyed it very much

Reviewer: ozlem agirbas

Healthy Eating

Mar 21st, 2010

Great activity focussing the group on eating healthily. Made us all hungry though! Worked very well with the class and they liked the pics.

Reviewer: Mary Hughes

healthy eating

Nov 4th, 2009

Finding the activities on this site really interesting and good for me to use as most of the 14 year olds I work with are kids who get bored very quickly but they seem to enjoy the sessions.

Reviewer: Linda Chippindale

healthy eating

Nov 4th, 2009

Finding the activities on this site really interesting and good for me to use as most of the 14 year olds I work with are kids who get bored very quickly but they seem to enjoy the sessions.

Reviewer: Linda Chippindale

healthy eating

Jul 14th, 2009

Excellent, used for a whole lesson acros all KS3 years.

Reviewer: OLUWATOYIN LADITI

Healthy Eating review

Feb 9th, 2009

very good activity. i did this with a low ability year 8 class who are normally difficult to motivate and they enjoyed this activity very much. all pupils were on task and involved in the lesson.

Reviewer: paula shannon

Healthy eating Yr8 & Yr 10 Entry level

Jun 9th, 2008

Outstanding resources for working with special needs pupils. Colourful, interesting, topical. Data presented in such a way easy as to be read and understand. Opens up discussions,debate and working together, skills difficult for many of our pupils on the autistic spectrum.

Reviewer: Anne Dockerty

Science

Nov 26th, 2007

I used this lesson with a very kinesthetic year 8 group, but tweaked it a bit so that it could be used as a lesson during anti bullying week. The lesson worked quite well. However is was a bit too discussion orientated for this particular group and needed some form of kinesthetic activity to engage these pupils.

Reviewer: Niamh O' Neill

Healthy Eating

Oct 15th, 2007

A very topical way of raising a currently important issue when it comes to childrens' health. All students were actively engaged and was even better when incorporated into the Morgan Spurtlock documentary Super Size Me.

Reviewer: Iain Hickman

Healthy Eating

Jul 9th, 2007

I delivered this activity 6 times as part of our PHSE day recently! All groups were mixed age and ability(Y7-10), two were all boys and it worked well for all students. The mystery object Mars Bar provided the challenge to guess what % of the daily energy intake it constituted, then we worked it out at the end. We didn't make the top trumps cards but sorted them into the traffic lighted piles three times - for sugar, fat and salt. I supplemented the activity by providing two cereal packets from my own children and asking them to be consultants to advise which was the most healthy. I also brought in ordinary and Healthy Eating versions of different foods to compare. An excellent activity, with many varied ways of using the material.

Reviewer: Ann Roche

Healthy Eating

Jan 12th, 2007

I think this activity is fantastic and so do my year 8 class and my year 10 Entry Level group.

Reviewer: Georgina Bentham

Healthy eating

Sep 30th, 2006

I used this with S4 (Yr.10) Access 2 level pupils. It really caught their interest, and focused their thinking.
Thanks.

Reviewer: Ros Miller

Healthy eating

Jul 10th, 2006

This was an excellent activity for both SEN and other pupils.as it differentiates itself.

Reviewer: MARION WILLIAMS

Healthy Eating

Jul 4th, 2006

I have just used this activity with a less able year 7 group. I was amazed at how well they all focused on the activity. The trafic light element worked well, once several examples had been done, as it highlighted the "good" and "bad" in many foods.

Reviewer: Rosemary Smyth

healthy eating

May 12th, 2006

i had the whole staff room involved in collecting food packages so that my year 9s could use these to complete the top trumps cards. they were so engaged in completing the cards and understanding the information on the products that they weren't interested in doing the top trumps, but wanted to compare nutritional info instead!!

Reviewer: debra johnson

Healthy eating

Mar 10th, 2006

My bottom set Y8 have just spent 2 very happy, engaged lessons making their Top Trumps cards and designing healthy balanced meals. They have even criticised their own diets of their own accord! We now have to play Top Trumps every lesson for the starter activity! And preferably all the rest of the lesson too!

Reviewer: Sheila Hope

Healthy eating

Feb 24th, 2006

An excellent activity. Supported very well, the work i am doing with my less able year 8 group and focused their minds.

Reviewer: David Ford