Healthy Living Lab rolls to Beach school
Breakfast has been called the most important meal of the day. That sentiment goes double for elementary students that need regular refueling for their growing bodies and developing brains.
Enter the Healthy Living Lab program – an in-school outreach program that is available to all District elementary schools.
Lee County School District Food & Nutrition Instructor Mary Ann Bucceroni visited Beach Elementary School via the Healthy Living Lab van during two mornings last week to deliver a message about developing healthy lifestyles to the young students. She was aided by “Coach Carrot” in pushing the emphasis on nutrition and physical fitness.
The program begins with teaching essentials to the kindergarten and first graders and becomes more comprehensive when the fourth and fifth graders were on hand the following day.
The younger elementary students learned about the importance of fruits and vegetables and tasted samplings of each of those two food groups.
“This is how you should fill your plate everyday,” said Bucceroni. “We are going to show you how much food you all have to eat everyday and all the different food in the food groups.”
Food groups involve fruits, vegetables, proteins, grains and dairy. The young students learned how to incorporate each food group into breakfast, lunch, healthy snacks and dinner.
Bucceroni mentioned that breakfast should include cereal, fruits (like bananas), orange juice, eggs and milk; lunch includes a hamburger or some other form of protein, salad, vegetables (such as corn) and fruit (such as cantaloupe) and milk; an afternoon snack should come before or after play-time exercise and include pretzels and fruit (such as blueberries); and dinner should include a protein (such as chicken) for the entree, vegetables (such as green beans) and a baked potato, fruit (such as strawberries) and chocolate milk.
Students learned healthy eating tips are based on 2,000 calories per day. They include eating six one-ounce servings of grains a day (half the servings should be whole), five half-cup servings of vegetables a day, four half-cup servings of fruit a day, two to three three-ounce servings of protein a day and three one-cup servings of dairy a day. Play time is also important as children should have 60 minutes of physical activity per day to supplement their nutrition. Go to www.ChooseMyPlate.gov to learn more.
Proper nutrition is vital for healthy teeth and bones. The students learned that each adult has 32 teeth and 206 bones in an average body.
Taste samplings were offered on a plate in front of each student. The plate was filled with different edible parts of a plant: leaves, seeds, stems and flowers. To translate food-wise, the plate included broccoli, spinach, zucchini, squash, carrot, blueberries, cantaloupe, grapes, raisins and strawberries.
“Just because we are going to eat every part of the plant, you cannot go outside to pick it to eat it,” said Bucceroni.
Students learned that while they are growing up, their taste buds change every three months. That is why it is important to re-try foods you did not like at a younger age. They were encouraged to tell their parents what fruits and vegetables they enjoyed, so that those certain foods could be purchased next time at the grocery store.
While the students cleaned up after themselves, the Healthy Living Lab coordinator informed that each teacher would receive a choosemyplate.com poster and an agriculture at-a-glance map of Florida to be hung in their classroom.
Go to www.healthylivinglab.leeschools.net to learn more about the program.