Introduction
Eating in class is one of the least enforced rules at my school. Students consume a mixture of salt, sugar, fat, additives, preservatives and unknown substances throughout the day. They drink an array of sodas, juices, energy drinks and bottled water. When I suggest healthy alternatives, they react like chemically dependant addicts. The two most frequent remarks that I hear are, "but it tastes so good and you have to die from something. Instead of just making students put away their "junk food," I want to inspire them to make healthy choices.
The recent national campaign to reduce pediatric obesity has attempted to reduce the fat and sugar consumption of school age children, but most of them still prefer processed food. The food industry has created myriad products and a convenient delivery system to satisfy the palates of youthful consumers. In addition to their negative impact on health, convenience foods are producing deleterious effects on the environment.
Most foods and beverages consumed by youth are packaged in plastic, including soda and energy drinks (with can linings made of BPA epoxy), chips, juice boxes, lunchables, candy, and single-use plastic water bottles. "The growth of bottled water consumption that has occurred in the last decade is a prime example of the dramatic increase in the use of plastic for food packaging. Snack-sized food and beverage packages made of plastic are on the rise due to their convenience. As package size diminishes, use of plastic increases (1)."
Once the contents inside the single-use plastic package are ingested, what happens to the remaining container? Another important question is what are the components in plastic packages? Furthermore, how do these constituents react in the body and how do they impact the environment? Discovering the answers to these essential questions is the crux of this curriculum unit.
The title Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Recognizing Toxic Chemicals in Foods and Beverages contends that there are harmful substances in the Standard American Diet (SAD). In fact, it proposes we need to know what they are in order to protect ourselves. However, the primary purpose of this unit is to explore the effects and potential dangers of plastic packages on environmental and human health.
"Toxic chemicals are ubiquitous, mysterious, and insidious. Plastics, solvents, pesticides, PCBs, phthalates, and others form chemical cocktails that may act together or on their own to damage human cells (2)." "Two plastic ingredients, bisphenol A (BPA) and Di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DHEP) have been detected in the blood and urine of nearly everyone who has been tested. Studies indicate that BPA and DHEP disrupt the normal growth and development in many different species of animals due to their hormonal activity (1)" Although chemicals in plastics have been linked to serious health risks and environmental deterioration; most high school students are unaware of this complex problem.
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