Healthy & Happy at Marie Reed, Part III: Lessons learned from Winter SCORES

As a part of the winter season with DC SCORES, intern Kristen Miano is spending some time with the Marie Reed Panthers as they learn about healthy eating and healthy living. Kristen is writing about her experience being in the classroom with the students as they grow in their understanding of how to live healthier and happier lives through better nutrition and active lifestyles. You can follow Kristen and her observations on Twitter, Instagram and Flickr.

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Written by Kristen Miano
Digital Media Intern

The last nutrition class for the Marie Reed Panthers took an overarching look at the entire season by asking the students a very basic question: Where does our food come from?

Starting off simply, nutrition teacher Carolyn Brandt asked the class where meat comes from.

“Animals!” was the resounding answer.

But there was more to the answer, though. We can eat two different kinds of animal products: meat and other items that come from animals.

“What comes from animals that we don’t need to kill the animals for?” asked Ms. Brandt.

“Tofu!” was one, emphatic answer.

Other correct answers included milk, eggs, cheese and the spectrum of dairy products.

The discussion then moved on to plant-based foods, like all the fruits and vegetables the class had learned about during the six-week season. Though most whole fruits and vegetables are easily identified as plants, it was important to note that most are different parts of the plant. For example, a potato is a plant root, but celery is a plant stem. Broccoli is a flower, while spinach is a leaf.

Next, the students divided into two teams -- boys versus girls -- to test their knowledge. Whenever the teacher held up a picture of a food, the teams were told to act out where the food came from to score points. For example, if the food came from an animal, the entire team needed to flap their arms like a chicken. If the food came from a plant, the team had to wave their hands like leaves on a tree. Though each team did extremely well, the girls’ team won the game by a single point.

Snack during the final week was a little different than usual. The “tasting” snack was designed to reinforce one of the main themes of the entire season: Trying new foods can be fun. Each student got to try a sample of a new, healthy food from a variety of options, including rice cakes, hummus, blueberries, yogurt raisins, sunflower seeds and baby carrots.

Despite initial protests that the hummus “looked gross” and that the rice cakes “aren’t rice krispie treats,” many of the students enjoyed the snack so much, they came back for seconds.

As the Winter SCORES season wrapped up its final nutrition class, the students took a moment to reflect on what they learned.

“I learned that we need good nutrition and that there are different kinds of food groups,” said Mamadou D., age 10, “We should eat healthy foods and be careful of what we eat.”

Jacqueline W., age 9, said she learned it was important to read nutrition labels, especially when it comes to checking a food’s fat content.

“I can eat healthy by eating lots of vegetables,” she added. “Also, fruits and dairy are healthy too.”

Overall, the Marie Reed Panthers are walking away from Winter SCORES with a better understanding of how to lead happier and healthier lives by picking the right foods to eat. The lessons they’ve learned are important for health now, will help them be better soccer players this spring season, and most importantly will continue to benefit them as they grow and learn beyond this season.

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Previous series blogs
Part I
Part II

Healthy & Happy at Marie Reed, Part II: Nutritious fast food

As a part of the winter season with DC SCORES, intern Kristen Miano is spending some time with the Marie Reed Panthers as they learn about healthy eating and healthy living. Kristen is writing about her experience being in the classroom with the students as they grow in their understanding of how to live healthier and happier lives through better nutrition and active lifestyles. You can follow Kristen and her observations on Twitter, Instagram and Flickr.

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Written by Kristen Miano
Digital Media Intern

Fast food is often cheap, easy and, for the most part, very unhealthy. But does it always have to be? Last Tuesday, the Marie Reed Panthers met up to find out.

The students were presented with nutrition fact labels for the ingredients in a small hamburger from a standard fast food restaurant and were tasked with adding up all the fat and calories of each item to figure out the totals for the entire sandwich. This hamburger may be a normal lunch for some, but the 790 calories and 36 grams of fat were shocking for everyone.

“There aren’t even a lot of nutrients in the burger for all the calories and fat you’re getting,” said nutrition teacher Carolyn Brandt. “Except for maybe the tomato and the lettuce, there’s hardly any vitamins or minerals in the burger.”

When asked what else they could order at a restaurant that may be healthier, the students were quick to respond with answers like salads and sandwiches. One student suggested going to Subway over places like McDonalds or Burger King because the sub shop tends to have more healthy choices to pick from.

The students also recalled what they learned in class the previous week when asked what they could order to drink.

“Water!” was the loud, unanimous answer.

One common problem the students also discussed was the prevalence of fast food advertising over commercials for healthy options. In an effort to combat this, the Panthers closed out their lesson by drawing their own ideas for commercials to promote healthy food.

One group decided to make an advertisement that featured the famous soccer star, Lionel Messi, ordering a salad at a fast food joint.

“If people see Messi ordering healthy food,” said Emelisa U., age 10, “they will want to order it too.”

When asked what he learned, Titus R., age 8, nicely summed up the lesson when he said that fast food restaurants aren’t really good for you, but have some okay options.

“I learned that fast food restaurants aren’t healthy,” Titus said. “(But) you can order a salad. That would be healthy.”

Healthy & happy at Marie Reed, Part I: Soda vs. water

As a part of the winter season with DC SCORES, intern Kristen Miano is spending some time with the Marie Reed Panthers as they learn about healthy eating and healthy living. Kristen is writing about her experience being in the classroom with the students as they grow in their understanding of how to live healthier and happier lives through better nutrition and active lifestyles. You can follow Kristen and her observations on Twitter, Instagram and Flickr.

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Written by Kristen Miano
Digital Media Intern

Equipped with teaspoons and measuring cups, the students in the nutrition class at Marie Reed Elementary School clustered around tables, carefully measuring out sugar and food coloring and dumping them into cups of water.

“It’s an experiment,” explained fourth-grader Nick P. “We’re making soda.”

The Marie Reed Panthers were tasked with mixing up their own sugary beverages as a part of a lesson about hydration. More specifically, the students were learning about the difference between soda and water and why the latter should be their drink of choice.

“We wanted to show the students why water is important to drink, especially for athletes,” said nutrition teacher Carolyn Brandt. “We also wanted to show them why consuming so much sugar and caffeine from soda isn’t as good for them.”

Prior to concocting their homemade sodas, the students listened to a presentation discussing how much water they should be drinking versus how much added sugar they should be getting per day.

The students were asked to guess how many teaspoons of added sugar they should have, at most, per day.

“Two!” came one answer. Too low.

“Twenty-one!” was another. Too high.

The answer ended up being 16 teaspoons, which some students felt was still a lot.

“But when you get 11 teaspoons from one soda,” the teacher explained, “How much more sugar can you have?”

The five teaspoons leftover certainly didn’t seem like all that much left for an entire day.

If you are thirsty, the Panthers learned that the best thing to drink was water, as it has no added sugar and no caffeine. The students also learned that water is important because it helps our bodies get rid of waste and helps us cool off when we sweat.

When it came to creating their sodas, many students were surprised by the amount of added dye and sugar they were asked to put into their water, illustrating just how unhealthy soda could be when consumed excessively.

“We’re not supposed to drink soda,” said fourth-grader Taryn H. “It’s a lesson so we can see what’s in soda and why it’s not healthy.”

This nutrition lesson will no doubt be helpful to the Panthers whenever they take the soccer field. Drinking eight or more glasses of water per day is an important lesson for everyone, after all, and is an area the Marie Reed students are now experts in.