Unit 1 – Area of Study 2: Health and nutrition
Outcome 2
Apply nutrition knowledge and tools to the selection of food and the evaluation of nutrition information.
Examples of learning activities
- during the decade up to 2012, Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council spent approximately $336 million on nutrition-related research; introduce this area of study by asking:
- Why the investment?
- What are the problems that need to be resolved?
- What are some of the possible answers?
- ask students to visually conceptualise food as a foundation, for example, of a building; students create an annotated drawing or diagram that illustrates the structure supported by this foundation, considering the question ‘What are the elements of health and wellbeing that are supported by food and nutrition?’
- ‘Consuming a sensible, balanced diet can help us to achieve optimal health throughout life’ (National Health and Medical Research Council); analyse this statement in a short written report that investigates and explains the meanings of ‘sensible’, ‘balanced’ and ‘optimal health’ in this context
- as a class, consider the question ‘What are the major nutrients?’; visit
Eat for Health; find the ‘Calculate your daily nutrient requirements’ link to identify the nutrients for which there are daily recommended intakes; allocate different nutrients to students, who then share brief oral or visual presentations on the functions and food sources of these nutrients; for example students could use
Comic Life or
Padlet to create a visual presentation
- investigate macronutrients: what they are, why they are important to health, and good food sources; suggest new, effective ways to communicate this information to teenagers
- investigate micronutrients: what they are, which ones are important for growth and functioning during adolescence (including calcium, iron and vitamin C), and good food sources; suggest new, effective ways to communicate this information to teenagers
- ‘Food provides our bodies with the energy, protein, essential fats, vitamins and minerals to live, grow and function properly. We need a wide variety of different foods to provide the right amounts of nutrients for good health’ (National Health and Medical Research Council). How does the Australian government suggest we achieve this? Investigate current advice and guidelines
- access the
Australian Guide to Healthy Eating describe the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating to someone who has never seen it before, and explain how it relates to the Australian Dietary Guidelines
- visit Nutrition Australia’s
Healthy Eating Pyramid; access the list of Frequently Asked Questions and see how many students can accurately answer before looking at the responses provided by Nutrition Australia
- find out about the
Health Star Rating System; prepare a review of its effectiveness by considering the following questions:
- Is the System easy to understand?
- Easy to use?
- Does it promote the right foods?
- Does it help to improve the health of Australians?
- review the media article at
The Conversation, which compares the health star rating system with the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating; ask students to summarise the arguments presented; Do they agree? Why/why not?
- according to
Australia’s Health 2016 ‘Only 3.3 per cent of young people ate enough fruit and vegetables according to the Australian Dietary Guidelines − 46 per cent ate the recommended 2 daily serves of fruit (3 serves for 15–17 year olds) but only 4 per cent had 5 serves of vegetables a day (or 4 serves for 15–17 year olds)’; prepare a response to this statement:
- What nutrients are Australia’s young people likely to be deficient in?
- How might this effect their functioning and health?
- ‘Children who skip breakfast generally have poorer nutrition. Their diets contain less calcium, iron, dietary fibre and vitamins such as riboflavin and niacin. Skipping breakfast becomes more common as children get older… Adults who eat a healthy breakfast are more likely to be a healthy weight and more productive at work’ (Better Health Channel); with the above information in mind, write some brief but catchy advertising copy to encourage young people to eat breakfast
- investigate the long-term health effects of dietary imbalance by looking at the summary of the World Health Organisation’s report
‘Diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic disease’; list the six sub-headings on the webpage; for each one, note the recommendations of foods/nutrients to have more/less of
- critique Better Health Channel’s
‘Teenagers and healthy eating’ fact sheet; students list the new things they learned while reading it and choose one fact they would share with a friend; consider whether such information can make a difference to food choices. Why/why not?
- as a class, brainstorm and make a list of all the sources of food information young people are exposed to, especially information about healthy eating; together create a continuum from ‘Most believable and trustworthy sources’ to least; discuss various barriers to credibility and integrity, such as conflict of interest, profit motive, lack of qualifications and flawed research methods; find and share examples of evidence-based, trustworthy nutrition information
- Nutrition Australia’s fact sheet
‘Nutrition for Teens’ states that ‘Eating a balance of good foods, coupled with regular physical activity, will help you: feel great, function at your full potential, maintain a healthy weight’; with a focus on food and nutrition, design and prepare a brochure or advertisement that supports the above statement and promotes ‘fad free food’ to young people; use
Comic Life to create a brochure: visit the Department of Education and Training FUSE for a
tutorial to assist in using Comic Life or download the
Digital Deck: eduSTAR – Comic Life
- investigate advocacy groups that work to monitor and regulate food advertising aimed at children; find an example of an Australian organisation that has a YouTube channel to assist its advocacy; consider the following questions:
- How does the group use YouTube to communicate about food advertising for children?
- What claims are they making about the nutritional value of foods being promoted to children?
- Are these claims valid? Why/why not?
-
discuss and debate the following topic: ‘Research shows that children and adolescents are more vulnerable to marketing’s influence than adults. In particular, food and beverage marketing has a tremendous impact on what young people eat and drink, and marketers use this knowledge to reach kids at a young age, potentially shaping their eating habits for life’ (
Digital Ads).
- ‘With a growing amount of marketing dollars being pumped into digital venues such as social networks, online games, mobile phones, and virtual worlds, fast food, snack and soft drink companies are able to reach kids and teens in more ways and in more places than ever’ (Digital Ads - Marketer's Bag of Tricks); access this link, study the information under the heading ‘Techniques’ and explain the five techniques; find examples of these techniques being used in food marketing in Australia; draw evidence-based conclusions about whether these techniques work i.e. lead to more sales and increased consumption
- critique the digital brochure
‘Claims and evidence: food marketing to children’; the brochure looks at six claims commonly made in support of food ads aimed at children, and presents evidence in response to the claims
- as a class, make a list of factors that make it difficult to have a healthy diet; then make a list of factors that make it easier to have a healthy diet
- considering their social, cultural and political worlds, create a concept map that shows the co-existence and intersection of these three tiers of influence, with focus on how they make decisions about what to eat; use concept mapping software such as SmartDraw, Visio,
Webspiration Classroom, Cmap, Inspiration, MindManager,
Mind42,
MindMeister, Mindomo,
Bubbl.us, or
FreeMind to develop a concept map; the Digital Deck contains information about using
FreeMind and
collaborative idea maps; include in the concept map at least two food-related messages that regularly come their way from each of the three categories of influence
- find case studies of media celebrities who have found a voice as ‘experts’ in food and nutrition; as a class, compile a reference list of books, television programs, and social media accounts that promote the idea of ‘celebrity as expert’; review several of these references, evaluating the impact of the nutrition message in terms of long-term health outcomes for youth; try to identify at least one positive case study (i.e. a credible and informed voice) among those they review
- investigate the work of the
Coalition on Food Advertising to Children
- create an infographic that details the World Health Organisation’s
‘Set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children’
Detailed example
Oral presentation (podcast): Sucked in? Young people and food marketing
Access and explore the
Digital Ads website to understand the argument put forward in the quote: ‘Research shows that children and adolescents are more vulnerable to marketing’s influence than adults. In particular, food and beverage marketing has a tremendous impact on what young people eat and drink, and marketers use this knowledge to reach kids at a young age, potentially shaping their eating habits for life’
Conduct a class discussion about whether, as adolescents, students feel that:
- they are more ‘vulnerable to marketing’s influence’ than older people (and, if so, how do marketers ‘reach kids’?)
- marketing has a ‘tremendous impact’ on what they eat and drink (and, if so, whether this will shape their eating habits ‘for life’).
Divide the class into groups. Each group creates an audio podcast on the topic of ‘Sucked in? Young people and food marketing’. The podcast should appeal to an adolescent audience and be suitable for broadcast on youth radio or uploaded to support a social media promotion of youth health and wellbeing.
The podcast should include:
- background information about the vulnerability of children and adolescents to marketing’s influence
- examples of food or beverage advertisements that effectively reach and influence young people
- interviews/vox pops that explore the experiences and opinions of young people on the topic.
Visit Department of Education and Training for information on
podcasting or download the
Digital Deck: Podcasts.