Introduction
There are many reasons to teach a unit about nutrition and healthy lifestyles to third graders. The rate of young children developing diabetes and other adult type diseases is growing. Students are taking medications now that they may need to take their entire life! Who knows what effect these medications have on the bodies of my students today and as they get older?
The increase in diabetes is linked with an increase in obesity, which is especially worrisome in children. The obesity rate among American children continues to increase. In 1971, 4% of 6 to 11 year old children were obese, by 2004, that figure has leaped to 18.8%. 1 Some studies state that 25% to 50% of obese children will remain obese into adulthood. The numbers for African-American and Hispanic children being classified as obese are even higher, with as many as 25% of children in these racial groups being classified as obese. My students are at risk for becoming obese with 73% being minorities from at risk populations. Students today lead a more sedentary lifestyle than their previous counterparts. Endless hours of TV programming, video games, and computer activities have students passively engaged and sitting for hours.
The availability of food choices can be overwhelming: it is difficult to tell healthy from unhealthy. I want my students to start paying attention to what they put into their bodies and what effects these foods have on their moods, activity levels, and even academics. I want to encourage them to make smart choice based not only on what I teach them but also on how they feel when they eat healthier foods.
I want to get them up and start moving to help counteract the trend toward obesity. The conversations overheard from my students often involve some type of video game trick, computer website, or TV show summary. I want to replace those conversations with questions and comments about the activities they are participating in. My dream would be to walk in and hear Dwayne say, "Last night I went biking with my older brother!" and Chris reply," That's great, I played Lacrosse."
Everyone knows that we need sleep, but we're not too sure about why. A German study focused on nearly 7000 children aged five to six. This study found that the less a child slept, the more likely they were to be overweight. 2 It has also been suggested that the amount of sleep a student gets can affect their academic performance. I want to expose these ideas to my students and have them become more attentive to what happens to their bodies and performance when they get enough sleep as compared to when they do not. If I can give my students and their families' quick, inexpensive, healthy alternatives, it will be a great way to get an early start to a healthy life.
This unit will be taught during an eight-week period using an interdisciplinary approach. The science standards will be taught for 45 minutes three to four times a week during Science class; the mathematics standards will be imbedded in the activities presented during science content instruction and also one hour a week during Math class; the physical education standards will be taught for 45 minutes two times a week. This approach will help to motivate my students and give them authentic opportunities to apply the information they are learning. The main content of this unit will include the science standards with additional instruction on the biological process of digestion. Students will be learning about the human body and digestion. Imbedded in this will be my English/Language Arts standards as the students participate in research projects, maintain personal journals, and complete a variety of vocabulary activities. Mathematics standards will be addressed as I highlight real life problem-solving opportunities. The students will collect, graph, and extrapolate information on personal eating, resting, and physical activity data. As students gain knowledge about obtaining and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, Physical Education standards will be integrated to get the students up and moving.
Achieving a healthy lifestyle can be puzzling. To sort this out I will identify three main pieces to this puzzle and arrange them to suggest a pathway to a healthier life. The first puzzle piece is food and nutrition. I will introduce the concept of a food calorie with the students and the building blocks of nutrition; carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. The second piece of the puzzle is the physical process of digestion. Students will be responsible for researching digestion and developing a final project to display the knowledge they have gained. The final piece is the physical aspects of healthy living. Students will investigate a variety of activities and the caloric cost of those activities to begin to understand the balance of calories in versus calories out. In addition, students will consider the importance of sleep in their daily lives and investigate their performance based on their sleep hours. At the end of the unit, all three of these pieces will come together to show the big picture of how to achieve and preserve a healthy lifestyle.
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