I
had an interesting experience keeping my food journal this last two weeks. This
was not really a very long time to be working on this, but I do think I learned
a few things in the process as I have never done any sort of recording my food
and activity level. I learned that health is not really my first concern in my
eating habits unfortunately, I think more about convenience and what is readily
available at the time or based on habit, I should probably work to change my
habits so that they are natural for me. This is similar for my activity level,
I do not set time aside to exercise, and I just take activity as part of my
normal day. For example, I am a custodian and am on my feet during my whole
shift doing heavy lifting, I also make it a habit to walk from place to place
when I can, but this is more to save gas than to be healthy. I reckon I ought
to try to actually make a point of having a healthy lifestyle for the purpose
of health rather than economic purposes; I can’t very well get kids in my class
to be healthy so that they can save gas or through heavy grunt labor, both
would be illegal. I therefore must model health for its own sake for my
students.
My
goal was not to drink as much soda, as soda is not very good for me. I managed
to drink no soda during the second week of the class so that was good. I think
this goal was a reasonable one as it did not really involve many significant
changes in my diet, it just meant taking the one thing out, and I was also
motivated by the prospect of saving money. This motivated me more than health
did, and I saved ten dollars over that week which was nice. However, like my
previous point it would have been better to be motivated by health because that’s
what I want to model. Being able to set goals and achieve them is an important
skill to teach children, and this is extra important when it is a relevant
subject like their own bodies. Having reasonable goals spread across a long
period of time so that they can have a good ability to achieve their goals in a
way that challenges them but does not discourage them.
I
reckon that this sort of activity can be incorporated into a reading or writing
activity so they can reflect and write about their experience in keeping their journal.
I could also use this as an assessment method to make sure that the children are
learning their lesson about healthy living. I suppose that a calorie counting
element can be incorporated into the lesson which could be used to add an
element of practically usable mathematics into the math and the health curriculum.
While it may take some creative thinking to teach health within the busy
schedule of the typical elementary
school class, but it is certainly a worthwhile endeavor.
