Thursday, February 26, 2009

Healthy eating?

Goodness, that last post garnered some unexpectedly nice and interesting comments. Aren’t blogging connections fun? My non-blogging friends clearly don’t understand why I do it, but – you all know why, don’t you? It’s lovely!

One of my classes consists of a motley crew of disaffected 15-17 year-olds who’ve managed to slide through life avoiding education – mainly by being expelled from their high schools. This is their second chance – and they’re not always terribly keen on it.

I decided that we would do a little project on healthy eating. They tend to graze on crisps (chips) and fizzy juice. We’ve researched websites, done surveys and then I got them to make up leaflets about this. We did them on computers using Publisher and – from a distance – the leaflets look great and the young ones are proud of them. Most of the information on them is good but I have to admit that some of it needs a little further tweaking. Here are some extracts:



* Minerals: drink 6-8 medium glasses a day

* Fat: we should take them three times a day

* Carbohydrates prevent heart attacks and cancer

* Vitamins keep us green and healthy

* When cooking meat, try and grill it or at least cut off as much of the meat as you can

* Always try and stay active and moving around after eating fatty food like kebabs and burgers

* Fat and sugar consists of sweets, cakes, cream and butter. We need these so that we can have our essential fatty acid which is vital for our proper nerve functions. We should have 2 portions a day.

(Now, that's a diet I could follow. Two cakes a day. Yum.)


By the way, I do apologise to anyone who Googled "Healthy Eating" and got this...

12 comments:

  1. Oh, goodness. Those are indeed some howlers! I'm sure my husband would be in agreement with the one about vitamins.

    Bless you for spending time on these folks. Sometimes kindly attention can make the difference between their falling between the cracks and not.

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  2. Mmm... that cake picture looks mighty tasty. And healthy!

    I second Warty. Sometimes a little bit of extra attention is all it takes to turn someone's life around. Good for you for having the patience for it.

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  3. I third Warty. A caring teacher, taking a genuine interest in those kids, can make a huge difference in their lives. Hats off to you Isabelle for not giving up on them when others have. Besides, we need a steady supply of howlers!

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  4. That's a very wise comment about cooking meat!

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  5. Isabelle, I LOVE it when you give us extracts from your students' writing. Cheers me up no end!

    Have a relaxing weekend - you deserve it!

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  6. Yes, your weekend needs to be about comfort, & catlets.
    Good luck to your lucky students.

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  7. Hee! But that cake looks very, very wonderful. have not eaten cake since christmas..............

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  8. I admit, I'm rather fonder of pie.

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  9. Hi Isabelle, I'm browsing your blog from China! I thought you'd like to see that in your stats. :-)

    Only one more week of my holiday. We're having a fabulous time. I was very excited in Xi'an, where we went to see the Terracotta Warriors. It snowed! On me! I talked TB, who wasn't at all impressed by the snow, into taking several photos of me being snowed upon.

    I enjoyed the howlers. I wonder how your students would cope, eating food in China. There are all sorts of interesting items on the menu - jellyfish, silkworms, snake. I'm sure it would be entertaining to hear what they had to say on the subject!

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  10. I've always wanted to be green and healthy, and now I know how! (And BTW I read The Thirteenth Tale recently too and couldn't agree more - like a wannabe Jane Eyre but enjoyable for all that!)

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  11. Yipee! A Howler post!

    You have the best job Isabelle. I know it's really hard a lot of the time, but boy, doing projects like this must be really fun! Sign me up for their version of healthy eating, by the way!

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  12. Two pieces of that delicious looking cake, please, and I promise to stay green and active after I eat them...and the kebab :)
    Burp. 'scusem moi!

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