Nutrition Month Activities

Thanks to its partnership with publisher Eye on Education, EducationWorld is pleased to present these activity ideas for Nutrition Month.

Did you know that March is National Nutrition Month?

Each year, since 1980, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics sponsors a nutrition information campaign in honor of National Nutrition Month. Celebrate this campaign by teaching your students how to make healthy choices about food and exercise.

Maybe your school would be interested in launching a Healthy Choices Week! Teachers can read Eat Healthy, Feel Great by Dr. William Sears to students and discuss green light (veggies and fruits, high consumption), yellow light (white bread and fruit juice, moderate consumption), and red light foods (candy and fried food, low consumption).

Other activities that can take place this month (or week) include:

• Colorful Foods: Fruits and vegetables come in various different colors, and a balanced diet should include food from each of these colors. Divide students into groups, and hand each group a large sheet of paper with a color written at top. Have students work together to come up with as many fruits and vegetables they can think of that are that color (example: for purple, students can list grapes and eggplants). You can turn this into a game by rewarding the winning group with something fun!
• Mystery Tasting Party: This is a great activity for elementary school students to learn about unusual fruits and vegetables. Bring in some unfamiliar fruit (can include kiwi, jicama, pomegranate, etc.). Blindfold students and ask them to taste the fruit. If they cannot identify it by taste, give them clues such as which vitamins it contains or where it is grown.
• Food Guessing Game: Tape the picture or name of a food (you can use fruits, vegetables, dairy products, etc.) to a student’s back. Students ask each other questions that can be answered with a “yes” or “no” to determine what they are. Have students form groups with other foods that would make a healthy balanced meal (i.e., containing 3 to 4 food groups in each).
• Making Healthy Choices: Teach students the important parts of nutrition labels, such as calories, fat grams, saturated and unsaturated fat, dietary fiber, and sugars. Hand out copies of nutrition labels and have students identify key points. Once students understand how to read nutrition labels, you can divide them into pairs. Hand each pair a set of nutrition labels to compare and have them determine which food is healthier.
• Nutrition Geography: Provide each student with a blank map of the world. Invite each student to look up their favorite food and then learn where in the world the food is grown or manufactured (students can use the internet or an encyclopedia). Then, give each student a blank map of the United States and instruct students to learn what food products and states are commonly associated with each other.

For more nutrition classroom activities, click here.

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Updated: 03/09/2015