Medium Post #4 — Dieting

For my 4th medium post, it focuses on dieting and how doing it the right way can lead to healthy living. The article focuses around the point that processed foods are dominating the food market these days, and it is creating health problems for peoples diet plans. The author of the article has proposed a good plan to use when trying to create a healthy diet. His plan goes with the steps of cutting out processed food by eating more minimally processed foods and eating a variation of them when you do. So, this would be the process of trying new things when creating your diet. The second part of his plan is to eat fewer, large meals of these minimal processed foods. The last part of his diet program is to kick out processed and fast food by using the “crowd out” method, which is where you eat so much healthy food that you don’t have any room in your stomach for processed foods or fast food. I think this article will be great to use in class and will do a great job starting students off on the right path towards creating a healthier diet for themselves.

In terms of using an educational standard for this article and the activity it will be incorporated into, I think I would use this content area (PE & Health K-12) for this article:

Montana Health Education Standard 3.1 (Grades 9–12) — Evaluate the validity of health information, products, and services

I think this standard will work well with a dieting lesson because it focuses on products and the information they pertain. This will work very well when students are trying to identify all the processed products they eat, and then it will become easier for them to cut most of these foods out of their diet. When students have the information available for themselves, they will be able to select what they should try to eat so they can create a healthier diet for themselves. They will also be able to find out what processed foods are the worst for them in large quantities. So, this standard will work well for this article and the activity it will accompany.

When it comes to connecting this article to a Grand Challenge of Education, I would connect this article to this challenge:

#3 — Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet

The reason why I would connect this challenge is because with this lesson I want to improve the knowledge of the relationships between cultures and biological diversity over time in order to better sustain both. The way I can do this is by teaching my students about the healthier foods they can choose and also teach them about the processed foods that are hurting real-healthy nutritional resources. By teaching this in my class and by using this Grand Challenge, students will be able to understand their own diet and then be able to create one that is more beneficial and long-lasting for their own health. So, this article and the content it contains will work well with the Grand Challenge I have selected.

If I were to teach about the article and what it is trying to teach, there would a certain plan I would use. My focus I am using in class is to create an Image. So, I want to create an image of why processed foods have become so popular and why healthier foods have been pushed so far away from mainstream dieting in Americans. I also want the students to create an image of where they can create their own diet that is healthier and does not contain as many processed foods. For the activity, I would use the routine from the “50 Routines” book known as Split-Page Notetaking. The split-page notes will work in the way where each set of notes are centered around the 4 questions centered around the topic of creating a healthy diet. To do this activity, I would need some questions that would help lead this activity. The questions I would ask are these:

1. What is a processed food and can you identify the ones you have a lot of in your diet?
2. Which of these foods should/can you get rid of in your diet?
3. What are healthier foods to include in your diet?
4. What does your diet plan look like after throwing out unhealthy foods and picking up more healthy foods?

The students will use this routine by taking notes that work towards answering these 4 questions above. The students will read the article, scan it, and then take notes. The split-page note activity will work in the way of having the student read the article first, and then go back through the article to find notes that focus around the 4 main questions. So, when students are taking notes they should have 4 sections to it. These 4 sections should then have a section of where the questions are actually answered in a detailed and appropriate manner. This activity and the questions that are focused around it will connect well with the Grand Challenge and content standard. By knowing the information about healthy and processed foods, the students will then be able to improve the relationship between cultures and biological diversity by creating alternative diet plans that are healthier for their physical and mental being. This article and the activity included with it will do a great job of supporting diverse learners because it will allow them to think and then come up with their own personal solution to a problem. Overall, I think the article and the activity included with it will do a great job of giving students knowledge and then giving them the tools to create healthier lifestyle for their own lives.