Like many things teenagers do—playing sports, juggling part-time jobs, or finding time for homework—healthful eating is a balancing act. It takes skillful maneuvering to get it right. Just as teenagers plot their game strategy, rearrange their work schedules, or budget their time, they need to choose diets that benefit them most—not only for today, but for the future, too.
The challenge is that many teenagers don't connect their food choices with their short- or long-term health. Even when they are savvy about nutrition, they tend to skip meals, snack too much, and eat unbalanced meals. Lack of time and discipline are often barriers to their healthy eating.
Studies (1988 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey) show that teenage diets typically lack several essential nutrients. For teenage girls, intakes of calcium and iron tend to be especially low. Teenage boys, who eat more calories and, as a result, more nutrients, fare better than girls; however, they often don't consume enough calcium either. This comes just at the time when they need more calcium for rapid bone growth. Teenage girls need extra iron to replace menstrual losses.
In teenage diets, nutrient-rich foods often come up short. They often lack enough fruits, dark-green or deep-yellow vegetables, and milk or milk products.
When it comes to teenage diets, health experts agree: What teens eat affects their health now—and in the future. For that reason, nutrition education needs not only to show the links between diet and health, but also to help students develop skills for making informed food decisions.
That's where the food label comes in.
A teenager's day is filled with food decisions. Many share responsibility for grocery shopping. And some choose foods to match specific goals, such as athletic performance or personal appearance. The good news is: the new food label gives today's teens major help for eating healthy!
For most teenagers, nutrition labels aren't new. Packages with labels have been sitting on their kitchen counters all their lives. But food labels have recently been updated and are now more complete and easier for them to use.
A Look at the New Food Label
Nutrition labeling has been a source of consumer information since the 1970's. However, in the early 1990's the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) revised the food label in major ways. (USDA regulates labels on meat and poultry; FDA regulates labeling of other foods.) Starting in 1994, food manufacturers were required to place new labels on their products.
Food labels were revamped to reflect today's health concerns and to make them easier to understand and use—for consumers of all ages, including teenagers. How have labels changed?
- Nutrition labeling is now mandatory for most packaged foods and voluntary for many raw foods.
- The nutrition panel has been redesigned. With similar serving sizes and nutrients of concern to today's consumers, this panel is now more complete and simpler to understand and use. This part of the label is called Nutrition Facts.
- There are a variety of formats for Nutrition Facts, depending on package size and nutrient content.
- Brief statements about a food's nutrient content can appear on food packages. These statements can only appear on foods meeting specific FDA/USDA definitions.
- Health claims linking a nutrient or food and a disease may appear, too. These claims are regulated by the government and give important information about how diet affects health.
- Ingredient lists are required on labels of all foods with more than one ingredient. The ingredients are listed in descending order of weight.
As a high school educator, you can give your students a jump-start to healthful eating. Introduce them to the new food label—a tool to help them make food choices that are balanced, varied and moderate and that promote their own good health!
Program Goals
To help you teach your students about the new food labels, FDA and the International Food Information Council Foundation have created this food labeling education kit, as part of a nationwide consumer education campaign.
Students who complete the reaming activities outlined in The New Food Label reaming guide should be able to:
- explain why and how food labeling can help them make informed food decisions and plan healthful diets
- discuss nutrition information that appears in the new Nutrition Facts panel
- use the new food label to make food choices for. a diet that promotes health.
Components
This labeling education kit includes the following instructional materials:
- lessons with reamer outcomes, background information, interactive teaching strategies, and reproducible activity sheets
- resource list of other materials on food labeling
- poster with the new food label on one side and the food guide pyramid on the other
- unit evaluation with prepaid postage to help in the planning and development of instructional materials for classroom use.
Teacher Tips
The lessons in this labeling education kit were designed to teach high school students about the new food labels. You may incorporate these lessons within various curricular areas, including health, family and consumer sciences, social studies, math, living skills, foods and nutrition, and general home economics.
These lessons, while as general as possible, require students to have a basic knowledge of nutrition.
Five lessons, each with reproducible activity sheets, help students learn the specifics of today's new label. These lessons are flexible; you may present them as a self-contained reaming unit or combine them with other teaching units in your curriculum.
- Lesson 1 offers an overview of the new food label.
- Lessons 2 through 4 focus on specific parts of the food label, including Nutrition Facts, nutrient content claims, health claims, ingredient lists, and freshness dates.
- Lesson 5 helps students use the new food label to meet the recommendations of the Food Guide Pyramid.
Presented as a duplicating master, Label Facts in each lesson give background information for you—and your students. They've been designed as a standalone fact sheet on labeling. If your textbooks don't have information on the new labels, make copies for students as their up-to-date reference.
For each lesson, hands-on reaming activities support the the stated learner outcomes. They promote critical thinking skills and allow students to practice and apply what they learn about labeling. Additional activities, listed as "To Learn More ...," extend the lesson.
A "check-up" quiz with an answer key is provided as a separate reproducible worksheet. Use it as a pretest to guide discussion or as a post-test to evaluate students' mastery of food labeling.
All charts, worksheets and other materials in this publication are within the public domain. For this reason, you may reproduce them without permission.
If you need more information about food labeling, refer to the resource list at the end of this activity guide. Or contact a registered dietitian, cooperative extension specialist, or an FDA public affairs specialist.
After you've used these food education lessons, we'd like to hear from you. Please complete and return the unit evaluation on page 49; postage is prepaid.
Do Ahead
With student help, gather food packaging that carries the new labeling. If the heading on the nutrition information panel says "Nutrition Facts," it's a new label. At the supermarket, look for point-of-purchase nutrition information for produce and for fresh meat, poultry and seafood, too.
Gather labeling information for a wide variety of foods:
- bread, cereal, rice, and pasta
- vegetables
- fruits
- milk, yogurt and cheese
- meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs, and nuts
- fats, oils and sweets
Among the many labels, find some with nutrient content claims, health claims, and product dating. Note: Packaged foods may carry more information than non- packaged raw or fresh foods.
