Ways Teachers Can Educate Elementary Children About Healthy Living

Childhood obesity has been increasing in alarming rates and teachers can help educate elementary children about healthy living so that they can adapt to good eating habits and regular exercising daily. According to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, childhood obesity is when a child's weight is at least 10 percent higher than what is recommended for the child's height and body type. Poor eating habits and lack of exercise are just two of the many causes that can bring on childhood obesity. Teachers can adapt lessons in the classroom to help educate children about the dangers of childhood obesity.

Discussing the dangers of childhood obesity can cause a scare into the children, so it is important to remember to be sensitive when discussing the matter to the children especially when there is already childhood obesity in the classroom. Teachers can bring up a point that a long time ago, we only had what was grown, which were the grains, fruits, vegetables, milk, meat and beans, but our society has changed and we now have a lot more choices of foods that are considered junk and have no food value, which can lead to unnecessary fat on our body that may eventually make us sick and how important it is to eat right.

Using the USDA Food Pyramid website is a wonderful place to start for teachers to help educate elementary children about healthy living. The USDA website offers a printable coloring page and a printable worksheet for elementary children. Here are some ways teachers can educate elementary children about healthy living using the USDA Food Pyramid for the children to learn to adapt their healthy living into their daily lives.

For first and second grade elementary children, print, copy, and pass out the USDA MyPyramid Coloring Sheet to each of the students. If your classroom is capable of displaying web page for the entire class on a monitor, show them the colored version of the MyPyramid Poster. Have the children take out an orange, green, red, blue, and purple crayon. Ask them to color each section one at a time as you explain the different food groups and how important it is to eat from each color every day in order to stay healthy. Instead of them writing in the lower boxes the names of the different food groups, ask them to draw pictures of the different grains, vegetables, fruits, milk, meat and beans. Teach them about the climbing of the stairs and how it's important to exercise daily. This will give the young elementary children a visual look at the Pyramid Food plan and what they should be doing.

For the older elementary children, grades 3 through 6, take a week or even a month and print, copy, and pass out the USDA MyPyramid Activity Worksheet daily so that they can write down each day what they ate for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and their daily physical activity. Teach them about each of the food groups and the importance of eating each food group daily and exercising so they can stay healthy.

Another way to help children understand the Food Pyramid is to play a giving game around Thanksgiving with the Food Pyramid. Take five large boxes and write one food group per box. The first box will say grains, the second box will say vegetables, the 3rd box will say fruits, the 4th box will say milk, and the 5th box will say meat and beans. Ask the children to bring in items from one or several of the foods groups. Each day as children are bringing in their foods, categorize them as a team in the classroom so that all the children can get a better understanding of each of the food groups. After you have filled the boxes, have a field trip with the children and deliver them to your local food bank.

Exercising is another very important step for childhood obesity. Teachers can take a proactive part in helping the children get the exercise they need by asking the students to volunteer to arrive to school 15 minutes prior to the start bell. For ten minutes, walk around the black top campus with the children. Action speaks louder than words and the children will see that you are taking your time to walk with them. Reward any child that has walked with a ticket and at the end of the week, let them choose a little prize. It could be a new pencil or any other little item the kids would like.

Teachers can really make a difference in a child's life to help be more educated about healthy living and to learn them early on so that they can make healthy living a daily part of their lives to combat childhood obesity.