January 2014: Question 2
What are some ways to inform students of good vs. bad food
choices in the cafeteria during their breakfast and/or lunch periods?
posted by Unknown @ 3:12 PM
33 comments
ISU Dietetic Internship Journal Club
Objective: To become familiar with current scientific literature on a variety of nutrition topics and to gain experience in gathering, organizing, critically evaluating, presenting and facilitating group discussion of the literature and the implications to practice.
33 Comments:
I would first encourage students to eat breakfast. Then I would provide them with the same kind of tips that I provide adults when dining out at restaurants. Some of those tips include: Choose whole grains over refined grains; choose main dishes that include vegetables; choose steamed, grilled, broiled or fresh foods rather than fried or sautéed ones; and pick a beverage without added sugars like plain fat-free or low-fat milk, unsweetened tea, or water.
I would use a "stop light" method for go, slow, woah foods. For example, I would put a green light to identify fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Another way to inform students about better choices would be to do an "RDs choice" or something of that nature.
To help inform the children, you could try and highlight the better food options by giving them extra press. For instance, I would try promoting the "meal of the day" which contained the healthier meal choices for that lunch period. During lunch I would try to encourage students to try this meal or some of its components and reward those who chose better options. Every month the child that the most star could receive a reward or picture taken.
For overall consistent promotion of the healthier food choices, I agree with Kaitlin that the stop light method would be great as well.
Sarah S said...
I would explain that there is no "good" or "bad" food, but that some choices are better than others. I would explain that whole foods are better choices than processed/refined foods and illustrate this point by giving examples. I would use MyPlate as a way to show how to put together a healthy meal and ask the kids to put together a healthy plate of their own using foods that are offered by the school.
I would find some way to identify/highlight the items in the lunchroom that the kids should eat more of. I also think that a large bulletin board outside of the lunchroom that highlights a certain food item each month may to a great way to educate the kids.
I would find some way to identify/highlight the items in the lunchroom that the kids should eat more of. I also think that a large bulletin board outside of the lunchroom that highlights a certain food item each month may to a great way to educate the kids.
I like Emily's idea of the reward system. Kids are always motivated when there is a prize or reward at the end.
I think a cafeteria is a great place for a bulletin board that shows differences between energy dense and non-energy dense foods. If funds and time were available, there could also be a featured healthy item of the day. Everyone would be encouraged to try the healthy food. Some simple quick information could be provided to the children as they try the item.
I do love the stoplight method! Many studies have shown that it is very affective.
I think educating the students during their eating hours would be beneficial. A video clip of fun healthy eating advertisements in the cafeteria could possibly get the children's attention. There was also a study done that showed that placing more healthy foods within the children's reach and moving the unhealthier items in a place that's slightly harder to get to can encourage healthy choices. Also, giving "boring and plain" vegetables a fun creative name usually entices children. One example a study gave was instead of carrots being listed, name them something like "Crunchy Cool Carrots," which is more appealing to children.
I also like the stoplight method Kaitlin suggested because it keeps everything simple for children when making their food choices.
Kaiti,
I love the idea of the "stop light" approach! You beat Courtney to her own thesis idea :)
Using signage in the cafeteria is are great ideas Kaitlin and Courtney. Using age appropriate nutrition education is key. I think the stop light method is great for elementary students!
I would do a group activity in the lunch room where the kids would pick a side of the room that represents balanced or unbalanced. When an example is shown of a meal they will quickly pick one. It would allow the kids to decipher between the food items being a good or bad choice while being active. After the kids picked a side I would explain what the correct answer was. By educating them about good choices they have the knowledge to make healthy choices.
I think creating some kind of mascot or character that represents the different food groups is something that would be interesting for kids. By sending home a newsletter or pamphlet with the children addressing how these different food groups are great on their own, but even better together would help to educate them about the importance of eating healthily. The newsletter could be set up as a comic strip or cartoon so that students would be excited to read them.
I also really like Sarah's idea of setting up MyPlate suggestions with foods offered at the school. I think that students would really relate to seeing pictures of food that they eat on a regular basis, and the visual of the MyPlate logo is great to see how to construct a healthy meal on a plate.
Signage is always a simple way to reach students as they enter the cafeteria or as they are going through the line to get there food. A bulletin board may be a helpful avenue for providing information and images for students. Having some sort of "healthy food choice" program to encourage students to choose healthy options as a meal could be a fun way to get students to realize which foods are better choices.
I like Lynetta's point to encourage breakfast for all students.
I also like Kaitlin's "stoplight" method for teaching students which foods to eat more of.
I think a bulletin board featuring something like "A Happy Tray for Today" would help. On half of the bulletin board I would display information like Lynetta suggested. whole grains over refined, vegetables, beverages without added sugars-things like that. Then on the other side I would display what a "happy" tray would look like for that specific day based on the choices offered that day in the cafeteria.
I agree with a lot of these ideas and think that a poster or bulletin board visible while they're making their food choices would be a good way to show the kids which were the better options. I think if there was a visual of the MyPlate guide on the bulletin board it could encourage kids to fill up their plates/trays similar to the MyPlate servings.
I agree with Kaitlin that a stoplight approach would be very effective. I think using the green, yellow, and red colors is a good way to represent which foods are "good" and "bad" in a way that children will easily understand.
Anna J. Said:
It would be neat is there could be role models for the kids to look up to showing healthy choices. It could be one of the teachers or someone famous the kids would know. I think of the READ signs that were in grade school (and even high school) when I was little (anyone else remember these?). I actually noticed and thought about the message on these signs when I saw them. Having athletes or other famous and inspiring leaders talk about how the healthy food choices they make given them the energy or ability concentrate or a way to take care of themselves everyday would set an example.
Anna J. said:
Kaitlin, Love the stop light method and I think kids would too.
Anna J. said:
Sarah, I really like that you emphasized there are no "good" or "bad" foods and would teach which choices were better encouraging those choices.
It might be interesting to see if a "stoplight" labeling system would be effective in helping kids make better choices. There will always be kids who make choices based on taste alone, but if the issue is a lack of knowledge about what is a healthy choice this could make a difference. Another way to get kids used to choosing something healthy might be to offer samples of a particular featured vegetable dish for that week, with a short blurb posted in the cafeteria about how that choice is beneficial.
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Susan, I really like the idea of using a "food mascot" & fun newsletters with comics and such to reach kids. By making food fun, kids remember more easily the good things about these foods. Maybe schools could have contests where the kids come up with a mascot themselves!
Tina, you are right about making the vegetables less boring. One of the PhD students at Colorado State did her thesis on the effect of marketing cafeteria dishes with fun names on vegetable consumption. She held focus groups with the kids where they would come up with the fun names & illustrations themselves, like "king corn". I believe she did find an improvement in consumption & the number of kids who took the dishes.
I like what Sarah said about teaching them that whole foods being better choices than processed/refined foods. I also like Courtney's bulletin board idea, and what Sammy said about the bulletin board being visible when they are making their food choices is important.
I did something similar to this in one of my rotations. We created slides that played on the screens in the cafeteria. We featured items to try to increase consumption and also included regular healthy eating tips. We used quick phrases and bright colors to catch and keep their attention.
I like Kaitlin's idea of the stop light method. I think that would work especially well with the elementary students.
I think it might be most important to educate students outside of the cafeteria, and then label food items descriptively in the cafeteria with the hope that they can learn to apply their knowledge in the cafeteria. Clearly label the options in the cafeteria according to their food group and number of servings. For example,“broccoli” is 1 serving of vegetables. Pineapple is a ½ serving of fruit, etc. If it is a grain, label it as a whole grain or non-whole grain.
In fact, maybe it would even be useful to provide kids with some sort of colored tag for every food item they choose at lunch, using colors that coordinate with myplate. So when they leave the cafeteria, they will have a little bag of colored tags that represents the meal they just ate. Then, in class later, there can be an activity in which kids look at the tags they have from their meal to see how “healthy” their choices were or how it compares to an ideal plate on myplate.
I have some hesitation with using the stoplight method in the actual cafeteria. If you think about it from the perspective of cafeteria staff that have just put effort into preparing all of these foods, I think they might resent having their food labeled negatively with "stoplights" or "red" colors. Can you imagine going anywhere else to eat, and the owners letting their food get labeled as "good" or "bad"? I think it would create a strange vibe to have signs with negative connotations hanging above food in a cafeteria.
I think the stoplight method has a lot of merit in other settings for sure, but maybe just not in the cafeteria itself (for me, at least).
I wouldn’t label foods as strictly “good” or “bad” per se. Similar to what Sarah said, I would just emphasize that you should eat some foods more often than other foods. I would try to implement some type of labeling system in the cafeteria, similar to the NuVal system at Meijer and Hy-vee stores, where healthier foods have a higher rating. However, I would make the labeling system more age appropriate for children. I would maybe use an A-F grading scale and have the more nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, labeled as “A+” foods, and the less nutritious foods labeled with lower grades. Hopefully this would get the students to consume the healthier, “A+” foods more often.
Kaitlin-
I like your idea of the stoplight method to identify healthier foods, because this method would be very easy for children to understand. I think that using a green light for foods like fruits and vegetables would be helpful. However, like what Brady said, labeling a food as “bad” that the cafeteria staff spent hours preparing may not be cost effective as those foods may go to waste. Therefore, I think just packaged foods like chips and cookies could be labeled as “bad” with a red light.
There would be many options to better inform students of what would be a "good" vs. a "bad" food choice in their school cafeteria. First off, I would kind of hope that there aren't very many "bad" food choices to begin with...especially with the younger aged students. If there are a ton of "bad" food choices available in the cafeteria, there may need to be some changes to the system. However, as with anything, there are always better choices relative to a different choice. To firmly emphasize which of the options would be better than the others, I really liked Caroline's idea about associating foods with a grading scale from A-F, much like they would see in their report cards or on their assignments/tests in class. I think that most students would be able to understand such a system with ease and would be able to better relate the grading scale to their own personal food choices. In a way, it is very similar to a Nu-Val system (or any comparable system that uses a numeric system to grade a foods healthfulness).
I also think it would be a good idea to have a reward system in place for students who have "A+ meals" or something similar. Perhaps for every 10 "A+" meals a student has each month, they get to put their name into a raffle to be drawn at the end of the month for a chance to have lunch with the principle or something else the students would like (my elementary school actually did the lunch with the principle idea for having good grades in class, it was neat).
Additionally, it would be a good idea to to try to ensure that student's bring their knowledge of what constitutes a healthy meal choice home with them each night, so that their families can continue the trend and offer delicious, healthy, meals. This is especially the case if students pack a lunch and/or eat breakfast at home before going to school (we don't want to forget about them!) This could be done with signage in and around the cafeteria, as many have already discussed. The students would see what great options are offered at school, and even if they don't eat the school's food, they may want to try to mimic what is offered both at home and when they bring their own lunch. Printed materials to give to students, or to their parents at PT conferences, emphasizing what the school is doing to offer more delicious, nutritious, meals would be another way to expand the horizon of the program and would maybe entice parents to insist that students eat what is offered at school for breakfast and lunch (much like my Mom did).
I also really like the Stoplight idea! I think that's something that children of all ages could grasp relatively easily. I would probably emphasize that "red light foods" don't neccesarily mean that they are completely off limits, but that they are better consumed in moderation or every once in awhile. I wouldn't think that many schools would have too many items available that students shouldn't be consuming any of like soda.
I like everyone's idea to put a bulletin board up, another way to reach a greatest number of students with simple exposure.
Emily's idea was very unique for a reward system, great idea!
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