YFCS-2/2.1, New Oct 2000. Molly Gregg, Extension 4-H Program Specialist

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Wellness Education Project: Building a Positive You!

"Eating Well"

The Alabama 4-H Wellness Education Project will help you learn how to build a positive you. By participating in this project, you will learn skills that will help you

• ENJOY EATING WELL (LEVEL 2.1)
• ENJOY BEING ACTIVE (LEVEL 2.2)
• EXPRESS YOUR CREATIVE SELF (LEVEL 2.3)
• LEARN MORE TO DO! (LEVEL 2.4)
• THINK POSITIVE (LEVEL 3.1)
• ACCEPT YOURSELF (LEVEL 3.2)
• BE GOOD TO YOURSELF (LEVEL 3.3)
• LEARN MORE TO DO! (LEVEL 3.4)

Eating Well

Everybody wants to live a long time, look good, and not feel tired all day. Even though we want to feel this way, most of us eat whatever looks good, whatever we feel like eating at the moment, or whatever we have time for. What you eat is the most important factor you control that can determine how long you live, how you look, how you feel, how well you perform at work and play, and even how smart you are.

The Food Guide Pyramid is an outline of what you should eat each day. The food pyramid illustrates the foods from the basic food groups and tells you how many servings of each group you should have in a day. One food group is not better than another. Each provides some but not all of the nutrients and vitamins you need each day to feel good.

FOOD or DRINK

		Fats & Sweets (Eat Less)
Dairy (2 Servings)		Meats (2 Servings)
Vegetables (3 Servings)		Fruits (2 Servings)
		Breads & Grains (6 Servings)

How Many Servings Do You Need Each Day?

As you can see in the chart below, everybody does not need the same amount of food each day. Younger children need less food than older children. How much food you need also depends on how much exercise you get. Study the chart to determine how many servings you need of the basic food groups. If you have difficulty, ask your parents or another family member to help you.

Food Group	Children ages 2 to 6 years, women, some older adults (about 1,600 calories)	Older children, teen girls, active women, most men (about 2,200 calories)	Teen boys, active men (about 2,800 calories)
Breads & Grains Bread, rice, cereal, pasta (grains), especially whole grains	6	9	11
Vegetables	3	4	5
Fruits	2	3	4
Dairy Milk, yogurt, cheese (dairy products), preferably fat free or low fat. Older children and teenagers (ages 9 to 18 years) and adults over 50 need 3 servings daily.	2-3	2-3	2-3
Meat Meat, poultry (chicken), fish, beans, eggs, nuts	2	2	3
Fats & Sweets Fats, oils, sweets	USE SPARINGLY--the less you eat of these the better!
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Sciences

What Counts as a Serving?

Grains Group (Bread, Cereal, Rice, and Pasta)

• 1 slice bread
• 1 cup cereal
• 1/2 cup cooked cereal, rice, or pasta

Fruit Group

• 1 medium apple, banana, orange, or pear
• 1/2 cup chopped, cooked, or canned fruit
• 3/4 cup fruit juice

Vegetable Group

• 1/2 cup raw vegetables
• 1/2 cup cooked vegetables
• 3/4 cup vegetable juice

Dairy Group

• 1 cup milk or yogurt (Choose skim or 2% rather than whole milk.)
• 1-1/2 ounces natural cheese such as cheddar
• 2 ounces processed cheese such as American (Choose fat-free or reduced-fat dairy products as much as possible.)

Meat and Beans Group (Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dried Beans, Eggs, and Nuts)

• 2 to 3 ounces chicken, fish, or cooked meat (Choose lean meat, which means that all the visible fat has been removed.)
• 1/2 cup cooked dried beans (Dried beans, peas, and lentils, which are something like beans, can be counted as servings in either the Meat and Beans Group or the Vegetable Group. As a vegetable, 1/2 cup beans counts as 1 serving. As a meat substi tute, 1 cup beans counts as 1 serving.)

Choose Fats and Sugars Sensibly

Fats supply energy and fatty acids, which are important for your health. You need some fat in the food you eat, but you need to make sensible choices. Some kinds of fat, especially saturated fats (high-fat dairy products such as cheese, whole milk, cream, and butter; fat in meats; skin and fat of poultry) increase your chances of developing heart disease. Unsaturated fats (found mainly in vegetable oils) do not increase your chances of developing heart disease.

The preparation of food contributes to fat content. Cooking foods in fats and oils causes the food to absorb some of the fat, therefore, becoming part of the food eaten. Let's look at what happens to a potato cooked different ways.

• A medium baked potato has 0.2 grams of fat.
• One ounce of potato chips has 10 grams of fat.
• A small order of French fries has 12 grams of fat.

There are lean and high-fat ways to cook. Boil, broil, grill, poach, roast, steam, or bake foods to keep them lean. The high-fat way to cook is to fry or deep-fry foods.

The most commonly eaten foods that are high in added sugar are soft drinks, candies, cakes, cookies, pies, fruit ades, and fruit punches. Added sugars are sugars and syrups added to foods when they are prepared; they do not occur naturally like the sugars in fruit. Limit your use of these beverages and foods and drink water to quench your thirst. These foods are hard on your gums and teeth. Avoid these foods between meals and brush and floss your teeth regularly.

Keep Food Safe to Eat

Keeping food safe means that the food that you eat or prepare at home is free of bacteria, toxins, parasites, viruses, or chemical contaminants that can hurt you or a member of your family. The farmers that grow our food, the food producers who take what the farmers grow and prepare prepackaged food, the supermarkets that store foods, and the cooks who fix the meals we enjoy at restaurants are required by law to keep food safe at their places of business. It is our job to keep food safe when it is in our homes.

How to Keep Food Safe at Home

• Wash your hands before working with food.
• Discard food that you suspect is spoiled. Trust your suspicions.
• Cook foods such as meat and poultry at high temperatures to prevent bacteria growth.
• Never leave meat, poultry, or fish at room temperature to thaw. To prevent the growth of bacteria, allow food to thaw in the  refrigerator.
• Use hot, soapy water to scrub cutting boards, especially after using them to prepare meat or poultry. If not cleaned properly, bacteria can contaminate the board and spread to other foods.
• Don't buy packaged or canned goods in damaged or bulging containers.
• Rinse tops of cans with hot water before opening.
• Check the expiration date on perishable foods.
• Thoroughly wash and scrub all fruits and vegetables to remove any pesticides. Remove the outer leaves of leafy vegetables for the same reason.
• Buy lean meats and trim off any visible fat because pesticide residues may be stored in animal fat.

Why We Eat the Way We Do

Many things influence our eating habits. Some factors that influence what we choose to eat depend on family customs, ethnic backgrounds, economics, geography and climate, availability, convenience, and personal taste. The goal of this 4-H project is to help you develop a good relationship with your body and to be sensitive to your physical needs. If you are hungry, eat, but make healthy choices. Use the Food Guide Pyramid. By developing a healthy relationship with food, you can avoid some of the problems that a dependency on unhealthy food can cause. Eating because you are sad or depressed can lead to obesity and other eating disorders.

If you are concerned about your weight, don't diet; just change your eating habits. Begin to make healthy food choices from the Food Guide Pyramid and eat appropriate portion sizes. Add an hour of exercise to your plan and, in time, you will feel as good on the outside as you do on the inside. If you think you may be suffering from an eating disorder, confide in a family member, teacher, or friend. Eating disorders can kill or result in lifelong health problems. Two types of eating disorders are anorexia, a condition when the fear of becoming overweight results in severe weight loss from starvation, and bulimia, a disease when sufferers binge eat or eat lots of food at once and then make themselves throw-up.

What to Do!

Begin keeping a record of what you eat each day in your 4-H journal. You may want to create a chart in your journal that looks something like this:

Food or Drink	Dairy	Meat	Fruit	Vegetable	Grain	Fats
1 apple			X
Ham sandwich		X 2 ounces ham		X X lettuce and tomato	X X 2 slices bread	X teaspoon mayo
Total servings for day
Recommended number of servings
Changes to be made

Write down all the foods you eat each day and fill in the chart by putting an X in the appropriate food group column. At the end of each day, add your totals. Study your eating habits and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Did I stay within the recommended number of servings for the food groups?
2. Do I need to show more moderation in my eating?
3. Do I need to eat more in certain food groups and less in others? Remember, if you don't eat a balanced diet with foods from all of the food groups, your diet will be lacking in certain nutrients.
4. Did I eat a variety of foods in all food groups?
5. How can I improve my diet?
6. Why is good nutrition important to me?
   • The United States Food and Drug Administration requires that every packaged food be labeled with four kinds of information. Can you determine what those four things are by studying prepackaged foods in your kitchen?
   • Does your kitchen at home pass a food safety inspection?
   • Watch TV for an hour or so after school. In your 4-H journal, make a list of all the types of food advertised during that hour. Were the advertisers trying to sell you healthy foods? Do the same with a couple of magazines. Do you see many advertisements for fruits and vegetables? What types of food are advertised? Are they high in fat and sugar?
   • From a magazine choose an advertisement for a product that appeals to you. Paste it in your 4-H journal. Look at your advertisement and answer the following questions:
     • What do the people shown in the advertisement look like?
     • What product is being advertised?
     • Is the emphasis in your ad on the product or on the people?
     • Why do you think advertisers use certain people in the ad? What does the ad seem to imply?
     • Do you think the people in the ad represent typical Americans--or people like you? Why? Or why not?
     • Do you think people tend to compare themselves to people they see on TV and in magazines?
     • How can associating beautiful people with products help sell the products?
     • Do you think the media has contributed to eating disorders? Why? Or why not?

If this activity is too hard for you, get help from a family member or friend. The important lesson to learn is that the media can have a powerful influence on what we think about ourselves.