I was happy to learn today that every teacher in Washington is provided a $20 per year budget for purchasing nutrition teaching materials. Since teachers are allowed to pool their budgets it should be a simple matter for schools to acquire all the materials they need, at little or no cost, to provide an excellent nutrition program for their students.
Our discussion of package labeling was quite surprising. Despite laws requiring standard nutrition information on packages, we found the labels deceptive. Terms such as natural, organic, and nutritious mean little when compared to the actual ingredients in the package. Products generally considered to be healthy may in fact be unhealthy.
The research we conducted on product placement in supermarket shelves generally confirmed my preconceptions. Many product shelves are arranged with the intent to attract children so they can influence their parents' purchases. Coupled with the deceptive labeling, this can present difficult purchasing decisions for parents.
Kudos to our first microteaching teams who presented fun and interesting lessons on heart rates and sugar. We learned how to calculate our maximum and target base heart rates. We also found that, like most Americans, we consume far too much processed sugar in our diets.
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