Being a student has a lot of challenges particularly in the modern and fast paced technological world in which we are continually bombarded with new information. The amount of health information out there is overwhelming and at times confusing, for example, one scientific journal recently outlined the positive effects of caffeine while another discourages the use of caffeine, especially when studying.
One source of health information which is often overlooked by both parents and teachers is nutritional labelling. Nutrition labelling has been used since the advent of processed food and can be used to teach students to evaluate how healthy food is. The challenge, however, is a lot of learners and students who buy food at the school tuckshop or in the local supermarket are more worried about the price than the quality.
Nutrition has been identified as a key modifiable lever for the prevention of chronic diseases in school nutrition programmes. Nutrition labelling has received growing attention from public health authorities, as a tool to promote healthier diets in the population. For most learners the problem could be converting the information on a nutrition label into meaningful health information which can be used to guide health decisions. Most schools are adopting nutrition programmes which can be used to teach learners the meaning of nutrition labels and how to interpret the labels. The reason for this is that learners are now part of the consumer chain and make choices about healthy food and nutrition.
A recent research study done in France on the impact of front pack nutritional labelling proved that nutrition labels can have an impact on food purchases particularly on food categories such as sweets and biscuits. Think of teaching your learners about nutrition labelling as an extra benefit to your nutrition programme.
You might want to read more about how to make teaching fractions fun.
