Day One of teaching a nutrition unit in 5th grade, way off topic!

I teach tech K-5, and integrate the tech skills into the content areas (Ela, math, science, etc.) Each year I do a unit and ask students to write an essay on some type of question where the answer is an opinion that should be supported with evidence and/or argued persuasively depending on the grade level.  I changed the topic this year over to "Should the government tax soda?". Students first learn about what sugar does to you, then what the "Big Food" industry does (added sugar in products to sell/increase profit, lobbies against policies that might be a detriment to their profit), and the impact on legislation (battle to get nutrition labels to include "added sugar" on it, sin tax on sugar, and core democratic values). Anyway, obviously this is something near and dear to my heart.

Today was the opening lesson and holy crap the kids were so hooked we all neglected to watch the time and went past the dismissal time. My quick video to launch had an accompanying graphic organizer that they would jot down notes on. The video itself was maybe 4.5 minutes long, with 5 points where we would stop and discuss. We only made it to the third point due to the deluge of questions, and their minds being blown by just the beginning content presented. We covered a simple explanation on how we naturally are drawn to sugar, what the average person eats a day, what you should eat a day, insulin impact/overworking the pancreas leads to diseases, and finally how sugar is as addicting as alcohol or cocaine with a blurb on dopamine and why that is. I openly shared my 150 pound weight loss, cancer status, previous diabetic status as a case point. They couldn't get enough. 

I think it is tragic that this type of material is not required in our schools. Clearly the kids have a strong interest and are positively shocked by the info to boot. 

If you are a teacher and interested in the video it can be found here. I would be happy to share my unit if there is any interest. 

I'm going off on a tangent here.  

I'm sure that you're aware of the recent information about how anti-fat studies were funded by the sugar industry.  So we got peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles telling us that fat was the culprit and sugar was TOTALLY FINE.  

This story broke on the same day we had the obligatory lecture in Anatomy of "these are scholarly journals, this is where to find them and this is why you need to use them and not wiki for any papers you submit la la la."  

And this makes me feel so conflicted.  On the one hand, yes, it is super important to know that the original publishers were biased and therefore the peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles they produced were biased and, as a result, WRONG.  But on the other hand, I can't help but worry that crap like this is going to create an even more science-stupid population.  Because if you can't trust scholarly journals, what can you trust?  And if things like this sugar lobby stuff can happen, or that super damaging vaccine/autism "study" can get published, how does that give people reassurance that science is right?  

It's frustrating to me :/  People are so ridiculously stupid about believing in scientific fact already that when crap like thi****s the mainstream media it only takes people closer to the future that Idiocracy presents :(

At any rate, good for you for teaching this unit.  It's important stuff. 

I literally just finished reading an article on that, and found a video clip. I think the teaching point there is to read the research, but to make sure you include who paid for that research and consider what is in it for them. I personally think that practice is criminal. I am tossing the video into the mix of resources the kiddos can peruse. I have on deck already a resource a clip saying explicitly that the sugar industry lies to kids. This fits right in to let them know that their parents were lied to also. 

Before I was a teacher I worked in a hospital that did sleep research. The drug companies would pay us to do the research on their drugs. The **** I saw makes me doubt every single damn claim about medication, effectiveness, and potential side effects. Criminal. 

I agree with you there - bias is such an important concept to understand.  From what I've seen of my fellow college classmates, it's something that is just NOT taught in school these days.  Which is scary.  People need to know that every single source of information they consume has bias.  That doesn't make it bad, but it's something people need to be aware of so that the information can be properly evaluated.  

Well, the thing with science too is that only positive results tend to be published.  Where drugs are concerned, if an unfavorable result is achieved, they often don't publish.  So, you are still seeing biased information even if you do read peer reviewed studies.  Psychiatric drugs are notorious for this.  

With regards to nutrition it's much of the same.  The American Heart Association has actually cancelled research studies rather than fund them when it became apparent high fat diets are healthier - Gary Taubes talked about this in some of his interviews.  Recently, a major nutritional conference cancelled a pro-lowcarb nutritionist from speaking.  It's sort of awful.

I'm glad you got to present this and that the kids are so receptive to it!  Keep us updated as you get through the module :)

I will. I think the kids are going to enjoy the unit, and learn a lot! 

Excellent information! I teach a Personal Wellbeing unit to 11th graders and it's amazing to point out to kids the calories they consume and the nutrients they lack.  Like how many teenagers realize that one chicken wing is 100 calories?!  (Realistically, how many adults do?)

I hear you. My problem with this unit is that there is so much that I want to teach them relating to nutrition that it is hard to whittle it down. My goal is for them to thus simply really understand how bad added sugar is for them, that is hidden in tons of food, and how to read a nutrition label. Of course there is the writing and tech portion in there obviously, but from the nutrition end that is what I hope they get out of it.

I am contemplating a food demo though. I might make homemade spaghetti sauce and either spaghetti squash or noodles, then compare the homemade to a jar of Prego or Ragu. I will also show them how fast you can cook a meal in an IP (bringing in tech this way) and that it is faster to do that then go out for McDonalds.  We will have to see though- I only see a class once per week for 50 minutes so this type of unit takes flipping forever to get though.

That would be great, but yes, 50 min. and once per week doesn't give you a lot of time to cover so much.  I use some of the resources from my Weight Wise classes to teach with now.  I love that my own personal journey can also help them, even if they don't know about my surgery.  :-)