Tag Archives: healthy eating

Using STEM to teach HEPA

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If you teach or work with kids, you probably know about STEM. It stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, and we hear about it a lot in terms of preparing students for the jobs of the future. But did you also know that we can use STEM to teach HEPA?

If HEPA makes you think of filters and allergies, think again! It’s a handy way to say Healthy Eating and Physical Activity. HEPA-focused STEM activities give kids the skills they need to make healthy choices. That’s why STEM is on our list of hot topics for 2020.

There are many ways to incorporate HEPA into STEM programs. Here are just a few ideas:

  1. Use food for hands-on nutrition activities that engage students, like this simple activity from the Children’s Museum of Houston about fat in food: https://www.cmhouston.org/experiment-fat.
  2. Teach cooking. Learning how to cook healthy food is a skill that will last a lifetime. Check out our Learn to Cook Workbook. Students will learn STEM-related concepts like food safety, cooking methods, and how to follow a recipe. There are even cooking-related math problems!
  3. Sharpen math skills with nutrition and physical activity lessons. We have the all the materials you need to combine math with HEPA:
    1. Math of Fiber
    2. Sugar Math
    3. Sodium Math
    4. Food Label Math
    5. Math of Movement
    6. Calorie Math
  4. Talk to students about HEPA-related STEM careers. Find information on these jobs at StemJobs.com:
    1. Nutritionist/dietitian
    2. Chef
    3. Professional food forager
    4. Food scientist
    5. Health teacher

Be sure to check out our entire collection of STEM-related materials. Use nutrition science and math to teach students of all ages (including adults) to make healthy choices!

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5 Ways to Use Our MyPlate Adult Coloring Books

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Have you ever thought about using adult coloring books with your clients or patients? Coloring can be meditative. It takes your mind off your worries. It relaxes the brain. And with our unique MyPlate adult coloring book, you get the added benefit of being exposed to healthy messages and images of healthy foods!

We have five ideas for how you can use our MyPlate coloring book, which is geared toward adults and teens:

  • Color-while-you-wait. In a waiting area, set up a table with a few of our MyPlate coloring books and a mug or two filled with sharpened colored pencils. Add a sign that invites people to sit down and color, even if it’s only for a few minutes. Maybe something like this: “Stressed out? Relax with some coloring!”
  • Color-for-a-tough-audience. Have you ever been asked to teach a healthy eating class and the audience is restless or just not that interested? We’ve all been there! Maybe it’s a group of high school students who have other things on their minds, a lunch-and-learn with stressed out employees, or an evening class where people are tired. Flip the switch with some MyPlate coloring!
  • Color-to-recharge. Teaching a seminar or workshop? When you give participants a restroom break, add an extra five minutes for some MyPlate coloring.
  • Color-to-recover. Coloring is great for patients recovering from surgery. It gives their brains something to concentrate on besides pain, discomfort, boredom, or worry.
  • Color-giveaway. Use our MyPlate adult coloring books as prizes at health fairs, biometric screenings, open houses, and other events.

And don’t forget to save one for yourself — your brain deserves a break, too!

Adult High School Middle School MyPlate Coloring Book Workbook Pack of 10 - Nutrition Education Store

Adult High School Middle School MyPlate Coloring Book Workbook Pack of 10

$34.00 $29.00
Add to Cart

See our free coloring sheet here in our nutrition month theme.

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Start September with Meal Planning

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There’s something about September that makes people feel refreshed and ready to start something new. This makes it the perfect time to talk about menu planning. Use our Menu Planning handout to show your clients the benefits of planning ahead.

Here are the benefits of planning meals ahead of time:

  • Your healthy eating plan is in writing, so you won’t “forget” your intentions halfway through the week.
  • Your written menu plan makes food shopping easy because you know exactly what you need to buy.
  • Instead of shopping, why not write a menu with 4-5 dinner ideas (like this one) then use a meal delivery app like Instacart, Amazon, or any online local delivery service to have your grocery list delivered to your door!
  • By shopping online you can find store specials for an ingredient (sort), stick to your list, and use the extra time to plan your menu, clean your kitchen, cook, and get organized for another week. A little experimentation shows it can save money because you are not adding “extras” from store aisle temptations!
  • Great ideas for fall meals include winter squash, beans, lentils, chickpea stews, chili, and delicious meals that cook or roast for a while to add aroma and warmth to a kitchen. These types of meals can be served over several days in one week.

123 method of meal planning:

  1. Think flavor instead of meat! Do you like spicy, roasted, thick and hearty? Plan meals around beans and lean protein and focus on flavors instead of meat as the centerpiece. Think about seasonal veggies and use them as the centerpiece. Here are a few examples: spicy bean chili, roasted winter squash, creamy corn chowder, and thick lentil-vegetable soup. If you use meat or poultry or fish, use it in smaller amounts and as a flavoring agent.
  2. Include a fibery starch like whole grains, beans, potatoes, yams, peas or winter squash.
  3. Include a seasonal, non-starchy vegetable like greens, tomatoes, asparagus, broccoli, peppers, etc. Salad counts!

Remember MyPlate’s lesson to make half of your plate veggies or fruits and veggies.

If planning a week’s worth of meals is overwhelming, we have some suggestions to make it easier:

  • Pick one or two food groups to plan, such as fruits and/or vegetables.
  • Plan for 3-4 days instead of the week.
  • Choose one meal to focus on and plan that for the week.

Help your clients say goodbye to summer and hello to healthy meal planning!

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Fall in Love with Salad

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I was recently stuck at the airport on the way home from a trip to New Orleans. It was lunch time and after a weekend of jambalaya, etouffee, gumbo, bananas Foster, and beignets, what I really wanted was a big healthy salad.

Lucky for me, I found a pretty nice pre-made salad at an airport shop. That’s the great thing about salad – you can get one just about anywhere. The catch? When it comes to nutrition, not all salads are created equal. Teach your clients to build a healthy salad wherever they are with our beautiful Salad Themed materials.

Start with our Fall In Love With Salad poster. It’s a bestseller and the content is aligned with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, MyPlate, and the Offer Versus Serve Program. And it comes with handouts, including salad fact sheets, fun puzzles, and recipes.

Use the poster’s key healthy salad messages for individual counseling or group sessions:

  • 6 Salad Lover Tips, like choosing darker greens, piling on colorful veggies and fruits, watching out for high fat toppings, adding protein, and using a healthy but tasty dressing.
  • 3 Reasons to Love Salad: it’s a great way to fit more veggies into your day, eat fewer calories, and get more nutrients and fiber.
  • How to spice up your salad with different ingredients, like Mandarin oranges, water chestnuts, or arugula.
  • Play “what should it be?”. Create a virtual salad using the audience’s favorite vegetables and writing these down on a dry erase board. Calculate the calories quickly by googling “calories for x” with x being the vegetable and let everyone in the audience help. Add them up. Most salads are less than 100 calories. Then go to the fast food websites and check out the calories for popular salads and check out those calories, which often go above the sandwiches and burgers. Why is there a greater difference? See if the audience can guess. By putting the dressing on the side and making smarter choices they can ensure that their salad is a low-calorie choice! Check out a visual comparison here.

To remind people to eat a healthy salad every day, give them one of our I Love Salad wristbands. What’s not to love about salad?

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Custom farm to school wall decals brighten and educate school walls

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Paula Wucklund, Fuel Up to Play 60 Coach, and physical education teacher, wanted to help her fellow PE teachers and school cafeterias in Arkansas. She wanted to illustrate how the farm to school program brings healthier foods into the schools and to create awareness of MyPlate, physical activity, and healthier eating for the students and the staff.

She contacted us and we designed custom wall decal banners for Arkansas schools. The first goal was to feature the stories and photos of many of the wonderful farmers in Arkansas to show how they work hard to grow crops, raise livestock, and produce dairy foods for students. And she wanted to illustrate MyPlate food groups with their goals and benefits. Finally we included photographs of each of the food groups.

The benefits of the end result is easy to see in the photos above. The 5 food groups were featured on wall decals while the MyPlate floor banner greets the students coming into the cafeteria. The items can be adhered to the walls and they are removable.

The schools will have a choice between vertical or horizontal orientations so that they can determine which works best for their walls.

The Arkansas Farm to School program connects Arkansas farmers to preschools and K-12 schools, so that they can provide fresh produce in school meals. The wall decal posters/banners that we created will help students, teachers, and cafeteria workers realize the importance of agriculture and healthful diets for school meals.

Food and Health Communications designed the banners and provided all of the forms so that Paula could contact the farmers and get their high-quality images and stories to share on the banners. They also provided the expertise for recommending MyPlate food groups and for the colorful food images. And their graphic design gave the banners an Arkansas state icon and brand.

We can create a set of farm to school banners for any school program. Contact us to get help now.

 

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