Lesson 4: Food Choices PDF

L esson 4: Food Choices Everyone has his or her own eating habits. What are yours? Eating habits are influenced by hunger, by your personal likes and dislikes, and by your level of physical activity. They are influenced by what you are used to eating with your family and by traditions you have t...

L esson 4: Food Choices Everyone has his or her own eating habits. What are yours? Eating habits are influenced by hunger, by your personal likes and dislikes, and by your level of physical activity. They are influenced by what you are used to eating with your family and by traditions you have that are associated with food. They can also be influenced by what your friends eat. As well, eating habits can be affected by concerns you have with your body image. Advertising and media, too, can be a strong influence on the choices you make about food. Understanding what influences your eating habits can help you avoid negative health choices. Evaluating the way you choose and purchase foods can help you understand why some foods and beverages are so attractive to you. Strategies to make positive choices about food can help you ensure that you are healthy. In this lesson you will examine factors that influence individual food choices and how some of these factors relate to the nutritional needs of teenagers. Health and Life Skills 7 56 Copyright ©2005 Alberta Education  Making Food Choices What and who influences the choices you make about food? Good nutrition contributes to a healthy lifestyle. Foods are neither good nor bad. It is what you eat over a long period of time that affects your health. There are a variety of factors that affect food choices. These factors are shown in the following web. They influence the choices you make about food and nutrition. food dietary and preferences nutritional needs peer of teens food pressure allergies Emotional Health Physical Health Personal Health Choices Intellectual Health influence of body advertising image 1. Read the following five scenarios. What decision do you think the teens in each scenario made? What factors do you think influenced their decisions about their food choices? a. Vanja is hungry, but he has only $4.25. The vegetarian sandwich he likes costs $4.75 while french fries and gravy cost $3.50. b. Catherine and her brother are doing the grocery shopping for their family. Next to the box of breakfast cereal they usually eat, Catherine sees a new cereal that has been advertised on television. She also has seen posters for the cereal in the bus shelter and in the window of the corner store. c. Jeroen and his teammates have just finished playing basketball. He is looking forward to the post-game ritual of eating at the fast-food outlet in the mall near the school. To his surprise, instead of ordering their usual double-cheese chili dogs and large colas, almost all of his buddies order taco salads and fruit juice. Section 1: Your Personal Health Copyright ©2005 Alberta Education 57  d. Marina is a vegetarian. She does not eat meat. She has been invited to her friend’s home for dinner. When she arrives, she realizes that the menu includes barbecued hamburgers and chicken breasts. e. Alberto and Lucinda have been training for the upcoming provincial track meet. They are both long distance runners, and both won the event for their school last year. As they leave the gym, they stop at the vending machines to get something to snack on. The machines are full of pop, chips, nachos, gum, chocolate bars, and candy-coated nuts. Compare your answers with those at the end of this lesson. You should now be able to recognize the factors that may affect your food choices. Next, you will examine how your food choices compare to your nutritional needs. Nutritional Needs Are you choosing the right foods for your nutritional needs? Earlier in this module, you looked at Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating as one of the standards for achieving positive health and wellness. The Food Guide is an eating plan consisting of the following four food groups: grain products vegetables and fruit milk products meat and alternatives This plan tells you about the number of servings from each food group that you need daily to have a balanced diet. The Food Guide recognizes that different people have different needs. Those needs are affected by age, body size, activity level, and gender. For more guidance in making wise food choices, read the article entitled “Free + Vice: Food FAQ” that follows. The article provides examples of proper serving sizes and sample menus that include the right combination of foods for good health. When you have finished reading the article, answer the question that comes after. Health and Life Skills 7 58 Copyright ©2005 Alberta Education  free – choose hot chocolate or a latte with skim (milk) instead + vice of straight coffee or tea – use yoghurt to make veggie dips or as a topping for fruit Food FAQ – dine on stir-fries with broccoli and almonds – when you make salmon Calcium is needed every day because sandwiches, mash the bones in with bone is continuously growing and the salmon resorbing back into the body. That’s right—if the body does not take Osteoporosis means “porous bones.” enough calcium, bone will dissolve No wonder those bones break so back into the bloodstream to keep easily. up the calcium level in the blood. Your body has less than 5 mL of iron Bones need more than calcium and but it’s a very important 5 mL. Iron phosphorus to grow and strengthen. is needed to make haemoglobin, the They also need activity—exercise part of the red blood cell that carries stimulates the growth of new bone. the oxygen you breathe in to the rest Walking and cycling are activities that of the body. are good for bones because they work the large bones of the body. Foods with Vitamin C (oranges, papaya, tomatoes, broccoli) help your Milk, yoghurt, cheese, and broccoli body absorb the iron you eat. Think are good sources of calcium. Choose of a broccoli beef stir-fry, baked beans low-fat cheese (no-fat or 1% cottage with whole-wheat toast, or a spinach cheese) and yoghurt along with skim and orange salad. or 1% milk to limit the amount of fat. Ice cream, which is higher in fat, can Fruits contain the same form of also be a good source of calcium so sugar as many candies but fruit also treat yourself with this dessert once contains minerals, vitamins and in a while. fibre. Build calcium into your daily The amounts of nutrients in brown routine sugar, honey and molasses are so – top a salad with cubes of cheese small that using these sweeteners – grate cheese onto soup is basically the same as using white – order milk, instead of a soft drink, sugar. with fast food or in a restaurant – make a canned cream soup with milk or soyamilk instead of water Section 1: Your Personal Health Copyright ©2005 Alberta Education 59  Increase the fibre in your day – choose whole-wheat buns, bread, – eat bran cereal for breakfast or pasta, tortillas, pizza crusts and sprinkle some on a dish of fruit pitas and yoghurt – put a handful of bran into meat Want to find out what’s in that package? mixed for hamburgers Reading the label can help. Ingredients – eat the skins of fruits and are listed in descending order, the vegetables largest amount first. So if the label – eat the fruit instead of just of a drink reads “Water, invert sugar, drinking the juice dextrose, fruit concentrate...”, what – take raisins and other dried fruits are you really buying? for a quick, sweet snack 1 2. Select two strategies for improving your personal food choices. Then write down the advantages of making each change. Compare your answer with the one at the end of this lesson. Healthful Snacks Snacks are as much a part of your daily eating plan as meals are. If you choose carefully, they can help meet your daily nutrient needs. Since many snack foods are high in fat, sugar, and calories, you must choose them wisely. For helpful advice on how to improve your snacking habits, read the article entitled “Good Eats Guide,” and answer the questions that follow. 1 Judith Campbell, “free + vice Food FAQ,” Life Choices Healthy & Well, (Scarborough: Pearson Education Canada, 1996), 52. Reproduced by permission. Health and Life Skills 7 60 Copyright ©2005 Alberta Education  Good Eats Guide A s reality has it, convenience store cuisine is becoming a staple in many diets these days. Whether it’s due to dealing with an empty house diet—it just requires a little extra planning. Eat less fat at other meals to help “budget” in extra fat. For example, drinking non-fat milk instead of after school or trying to fit food into a hectic lowfat milk and using jam on your toast instead of schedule, many a mini-meal is being made out margarine will make room for two extra teaspoons of snacks and snack food. of fat. (A fatty snack or meal or a day of eating The good news is that snacking isn’t so bad excess fat will not make or break your health. after all. Snacking can help squelch mid-afternoon It’s how you elect to eat the majority of the time munchies (making you less prone to overdo it at that counts.) mealtime), and it can even help you meet your daily nutritional needs. Just because you’ve been given the green light 4 Satisfy your sweet tooth in a sensible manner. Some sweets every now and then won’t hurt your health. These treats are naturally low in to go grazing doesn’t mean you should go crazy. fat: lowfat puddings, fig bars, graham crackers, Smart snacking means knowing what to choose frozen fruit bars, vanilla wafers, sorbet and fruit and how to make snacking a healthful part of your smoothies. diet. Here’s some help: 1 Choose low-fat and nutrient-rich snacks that’ll help you meet your daily nutritional 5 Don’t fall into snack traps. Beware of snack foods that sound nutritious, but offer little more than fat and calories. Some common culprits: requirements. A banana will help you meet your granola bars, microwave popcorn and trail mix fruit requirement for the day. Even items like (these are often high in fat), and fruit rolls or fruit whole-grain crackers or pretzels can help you chews, which rarely have much fruit in them, are meet your six to eleven recommended daily often high in sugar. servings of carbos. 2 Prepare for snack attacks. Don’t give into the high-fat snack selections in your school’s 6 Fiber fill-ups. Foods that are high in fiber help to fill you up, and since most of us only meet half of our fiber needs, it’s wise to choose vending machines. Instead, pack your own snacks, snack foods that are high in fiber. Some good such as fruit, yogurt, rice cakes, or pretzels. choices: air-popped popcorn or popcorn cakes, 3 Factor in a little extra fat now and then. You can fit a few fattening snack foods into your fresh fruit or vegetables, whole-wheat toast, wheat or bran cereals, lowfat bran muffins. making the swap—smart switches swap... for... french fries (360 cal., 18g fat) a baked potato (218 cal., 0g fat) cheesecake (188 cal., 14g fat) angel food cake (125 cal., 0g fat) vanilla ice cream (268 cal., 23g fat) lowfat frozen yogurt (200 cal., 4g fat) a glazed doughnut (192 cal., 13g fat) a bagel (300 cal., 1.4g fat) chocolate chip cookies (200 cal., 12g fat) fig bars (240 cal., 4g fat) (calories/fat figures based on one serving) 1 1 Reprinted courtesy of Teen Magazine. Section 1: Your Personal Health Copyright ©2005 Alberta Education 61  3. a. Identify three strategies for developing healthier snacking habits that are recommended in this article. b. Which three strategies can you use to change your snacking habits for the better? Write them in your notebook as “I” statements. 4. a. Borrow a menu from a restaurant, use a take-out menu, or search the web for restaurant menus. Create a chart in your notebook like the one that follows. List eight food items from the menu. Then indicate the food group to which it belongs. Menu Item Food Group b. Identify any foods that do not meet nutritional guidelines. What kinds of choices should you remind yourself to make about eating these foods? c. How would you design a healthy menu that appeals to teens? 5. a. Use the Internet or the library to search for information on a popular diet plan. It does not necessarily have to be a fad diet. It could include vegetarian, high-protein, low-fat, or gluten-free diets. Describe the types of foods that the diet includes. Use a chart, similar to the following one, to record the information you find. Resource Name of Diet Foods Included in Diet b. Compare recommendations for food choices in the diet to Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating. Compare your answers with those at the end of this lesson. Health and Life Skills 7 62 Copyright ©2005 Alberta Education  J ournal Entry Reflect on what you have learned in this lesson. Food is often a part of many activities, celebrations, and special times that are shared with friends and family. Many factors influence the decisions you make about your daily food intake. It is important that you understand the factors that influence your food choices so you can establish healthy eating habits. Think about the manner in which you make your decisions. Complete one of the following entries in your journal: The factors that influence my food choices include... My comfort foods are... I am happy with my eating habits when I... I know that my nutritional needs include... I am influenced most in my food choices by... Be sure to express your own ideas and opinions and support them with personal examples. Now, assess your journal entry using the scale that follows. Journal Response 0 1 2 3 4 Undeveloped Partial Adequate Interesting Powerful If you are comfortable doing so, share your journal writing with a friend, a parent, or another interested adult. Ask this person for his or her reaction. In this lesson you learned about factors that affect one’s food choices. You learned where to find information about your nutritional needs. One of the most important sources of information is Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating. You investigated strategies for improving your personal food choices including your snacking habits. Now open Assignment Booklet 1A and respond to questions 15 to 18. Section 1: Your Personal Health Copyright ©2005 Alberta Education 63