Lighten Things Up with Humor

Nutrition is a serious topic, but sometimes a little humor can help you get your point across. The Nutrition Education Store has lots of fun posters that convey important information in a lighthearted way.

One example is the See-Food Diet/Don’t Get Hooked poster.

The subject of this poster is a beautiful fish (made up of fruits and vegetables of course!) swimming along in the sea. The fish is tempted by hook after hook baited with not-so-healthy food choices like soda, chili dogs, cake, and candy. But if the fish looks down just a little, it sees a treasure chest spilling over with healthier food choices.

The message? Don’t eat everything you see. Don’t get hooked!

Here are some talking points to go along with this colorful and fun poster:

  • Ask some questions about what’s going on in the illustration…
    • Who is fishing? (food companies)
    • Who is the fish? (consumers)
    • What hooks catch your attention in real life? (billboards, ads, supermarket displays)
  • Talk about how mindful eating can help you ignore the hooks. Ask yourself…
    • Am I really hungry?
    • Do I want to eat because I just saw a fast food billboard?
  • Discuss the fact that hooks with unhealthy choices are always within reach.
    • When you bite once, another will appear.
    • It’s a cycle that’s hard to stop once you start.
  • Emphasize that you have to bait your own hooks!
    • There is a treasure trove of tasty, healthy foods, but they probably aren’t dangling on a hook right in front of your eyes.
    • Put healthy choices where you’ll see them – whether that’s at eye level in the refrigerator or in a fruit bowl on the table.

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

Use the code FALLSAVE15 to save 15% on anything in the Nutrition Education Store!

Who needs humor? Everyone!

We have a new category in our poster library: Health and Humor. We have collected our most fun and funny posters and included them in one collection for you to see. Here are just a few:

Research suggests that humor produces psychological and physiological benefits that help students learn.

Zak Stambor, Monitor, American Psychological Association
June 2006, Vol 37, No. 6, Print version: page 62

There are 12 different posters in this gallery. Imagine the delight when your staff, clients, patients, or students read about a “see-food diet” or try to outrun their fork (our newest poster)! They will stop reading their phones and start talking to each other. And they might remember some of your important lessons!

Here is a fun handout you can use now – it is about putting on your eating lights.