Insisting the Significance of Eating Healthy Snacks in Kindergartener - Essay Example

Health Promotion Plan For Kindergarteners 1 Insisting the Significance of Eating Healthy Snacks in Kindergarteners. A Health Promotion Plan is Carried out to insist on the significance of health, diet and nutrition, and to persevere on the importance of how to control or maintain our health, so that in future prolonged and sustaining health issues could be controlled. It is a also considered as an important aspect to improve the health of a whole Nation. It was during the year 1974 the concept of “Health Promotion” was proposed by Marc Lalonde, the Canadian Minister of Health. This plan is to teach the kindergarteners to understand the importance of eating healthy snacks, so that the prevailing problems such as obesity and diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases that are diagnosed among young children in many parts of the world. Pamela. K [1998] has noted that “A good snack is nutrient dense. This means that each bite contributes to the child’s intake of healthy foods. Six nutrients are needed to maintain a growing and healthy body: carbohydrates, protein, fat, minerals, vitamins and water.” The goal of this health promotion plan is teaching kindergarteners on eating healthy snacks, so that in future we could build healthier nation by enhancing the importance of healthier snacks and maintaining a balanced diet scheme. Teaching children between the age group 4-5 is a very difficult one, as they are too small to travel in the track of understanding. So the ethics of teaching kindergarteners should be learned first. Program Responsibilities: To assist and support the children in the process of realising what means eating or selecting healthy snacks for eating. To make them aware of the good effects of eating healthy snacks. To bring their parents participation into the program , so they could also extend their full support at home. Objectives: Children’s skills are subjected to what they learn in their school. The experiences that they get from school provide them with all the basic social skills. So if the teaching becomes effective the expected outcome will also be effective. 1. To teach the students importance of balanced diet and nutrition and how they determine a healthy life. 2. To teach them the type of snacks which come under “good for health” category. And make them ready to point out the healthy snacks. This could be done by making them understand the nutritional value which healthy snacks possess and its impact on our heath. 3. To evaluate the effectiveness of teaching. Steps involved in first objective: To select the target audience. i.e Kindergarteners. To evaluate them on the basic of their standard of understanding. In the sense, a small test should be conducted to calculate their presence of mind in the class room atmosphere, and their level of grasping power. To find out the most sharp and the average student, so that it would be better to make both the category students meet and let them talk over that. This could improve the latter’s understanding. To illustrate every point of teaching with either pictographic representations or real illustrations, for example small children who had fallen a victim to imbalanced diet and nutrition. To teach them what is meant by a balanced diet. This could be done by showing them vegetables and the vitamins or minerals these vegetables carry, and also showing them what are the food items or snacks that do not have a health value. By doing so the children would remember the nutritional value and the effect of nutrition over their health at the sigh of seeing a food item. This is further done by 1. either conducting a dance representation, making the students to participate by dressing like different vegetables. 2. the effect of eating such healthy food should be demonstrated by songs or rhymes with expressions showing full of happiness. 3. Eating Test once in a day to analyze what has been understood by the children so far. This could be done by taking them to a snack shop and asking them to select snacks based on nutritional values. The children would identify them by means of what ever models that were shown in the class room. Finally testing them what they have understood from this teaching will show the result of Health Promotion Plan. The test should be conducted by asking them to point out the vegetables on the basis of its value. It can also be conducted by asking them what they would prefer to take as food. Steps involved in achieving the second objective: As kindergarteners are too small to understand either what is meant by healthy snacks or what the significance of healthy food and unhealthy food is. Teaching should be carried out in such a way that they should get attracted by our way or approach and pronunciation of words. Keeping this in mind the teaching should be organised. But this could be achieved with the help of the instructors who usually visits their class To differentiate between a snack and normal food To show them all types of snacks available, this includes healthy as well as height calorific valued snacks. To suggest them eating those snacks that is really good for their health. The third aim or objective is evaluation of the teaching:. This could be done by 1. Comparing the physical examination of the students before and after the implementation of the health promotion plan. 2. Comparing the changes in life style of the children. In the sense how many times they prefer to take snacks and the quantity of intake etc. The American Annual Report of the Director of Health [2001] has to say that the Pan American Health Organisation in Canada and the Canadian Society for International Health are working vigorously to solve the health issues. But this has a better improvement in the recent days. The website called Health Canada [2006] has pointed out food items into four groups such as “grain products”, “vegetables and fruits”, “milk products”, and “meat and alternatives”. They have also insisted on some of the available food guides which would help in promoting health and reduces the consequences of nutrition related chronic diseases. “Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating” http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/index_e.html The teaching involves research of various topics related to food, as an effective step articles based on food and healthy eating and snack eating are collected and referred to the teaching as additional sources. Sources Used in Teaching: Reference: . Annual Report of the Director of Health. 2001. “Health Promotion and Protection”. Promoting Health in America. Pan American Health Organisation. Online available from http://www.ops-oms.org/English/D/OD302_01.pdf “Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating” http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/index_e.html Pamela.K “Healthy Snacking Grows Healthy Kids” Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, Arapahoe Country. August 27th 1998. online available http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/columncc/cc980827.html Materials Kept in Display: Samples of Snack Items shown such as 1. Pizzas with stuffing made of either fruits or mushrooms 2. Baked potatoes 3. Fruit salads 4. Raw vegetables cut and kept over yogurt 5. ice creams with fresh fruits toppings etc. Worksheets to initiate the exercise and tests; Charts to represent the diagrams of the snacks and asking the children to identify based on nutritional values. Read More