Fast food is bad for you. This is not a controversial statement. Sure, you have healthy choices, but did you really go to Steak N Shake for the salad? No, you went for the double steak burger, cheese fries, and the birthday cake shake. We know why it is bad: the shake is packed with sugar, the french fries are processed, frozen, and fried, and who knows what’s in the cheese sauce… This is a common discussion in high school Health classes. We take it a step further in my favorite nutrition lesson by asking “How bad is it?”
In Health class we discuss the role that our food choices play in our state of mind and physical health. The Nutrition unit starts by learning about all of the nutrients and food groups. We talk about recommended daily allowances, how to read food labels and substituting nutrient dense foods for “empty calories.” This all leads up to the lesson where we get to see what we actually eat and how it relates to what we have learned.
The activity is simple. Look-up your favorite fast food meal on the restaurant website, and add together all of the elements of that meal (Calories, Carbohydrates, Fats, Sugars & Sodium). Students will enter that information into a google form and submit it. The information that is submitted will automatically populate a spreadsheet that I have projected onto the screen. This allows us to compare the daily recommended amounts of each nutrient to what they were eating.
The results are the same each semester. Students are surprised to find out how easy it is to reach the recommended daily values in one meal at a fast food restaurant. The daily values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Over 50% of the meals submitted top 1000 calories. Nearly 75% of the meals meet or exceed the daily recommended amounts of sugar and fat. The numbers are disturbing.
What did we learn? Fast food is still bad for you. We already knew why it was bad for us, but now we know how bad it really is. We can take this data and discuss how eating like this multiple times each week can affect not only our health, but our performance on the athletic field or in the arts. We finish our discussion with a brief examination of healthy options at their chosen restaurant. Students know that the healthiest options are going to be fresh, unprocessed, foods. So naturally they look at the available salads. Everyone is excited to find a salad choice that drastically reduces calories, fats, and sugars…until I remind them to add their favorite dressing.
Andy Stout,PE and Health Teacher