Lesson idea for teaching about portions

For my nutrition and fitness unit, I decided to have the students tell me what they wanted to learn about/ what they were most worried about when it came to themselves and their nutrition and fitness habits (this taken from what Cougar talked to us about at our meeting)

One of my first lessons was about portions. I first had a volunteer come to the front of the classroom and pour us a "normal" size bowl of cereal. We then measured it out and found out that he was eating 2 servings of cereal per bowl, which he told us he usually ate 2 bowls at least!

I then told them that my "friend" Brian Regan was going to talk to us about portion size vs. serving size and showed the first part of this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBko_3wT44Q

Then I taught the students about the new myplate.gov and explained to them why it is important to eat smaller portions than the average American eats. We then learned about Portion Distortion. I printed out slides from this powerpoint:

http://hp2010.nhlbihin.net/oei_ss/PD1/slide1.htm

I taped them around the classroom. I had the students go on a gallery walk and write down what they found the most shocking about each slide. We then had a discussion on it.

The last activity we did (I told them it was a field trip- which really got their attention) I put a slide up of a grocery store and then told them that they were in charge of creating a romantic Valentines meal. I stopped by Macey's and picked up some of their ads for this week (it luckily was all about Valentine's) and I had the kids "shop" from the ad. They worked with partners to create their meal, and they were all so creative. After they finished I had them present their balanced meals to us. It was a really fun and engaging activity.

Cougar observed me the day that I taught this lesson and he loved it, so it's a solid one.

Kaitie