Communities and Schools Promoting Health

A Gateway to information on comprehensive school health (CSH) and health promoting schools (HPS)
Providing links to research, reports, how-to manuals, planning & assessment tools, lesson plans and student webquests

   


 

Webquest on Healthy Eating/Nutrition
Helping My Family Learn to Eat in a Healthy Manner

Prepared By: Mary Shannon & Doug McCall  
Sponsored By:
Canadian Diabetes Strategy, Health Canada

See the Teacher's Guide to this Webquest


 

Number of People for this WQ

  • This webquest can be done by an individual student, or with two or three students working together. All students should visit all assigned web sites and complete all of the activities individually in this webquest.

Outcomes for this WQ:

  • understand that moderation and balance are key to healthy eating

  • be able to identify and select foods from major food groups

  •  compare good eating habits with those of their family

  •  prepare a healthy eating plan for themselves and their parents

  • know where to seek help on diet

  • create social support with parents

Materials for this WQ

  • Your teacher will need to register your class or school with E-Stat, an educational program of Statistics Canada.

  • Access to the Internet at home is preferable for this webquest (your parent will be asked to take a survey) but you can print the pages and ask your parents those questions that way.

Documents for This WQ

  • There are no documents prepared specifically for this webquest.

Student Tools for this WQ

Evaluation Criteria/Procedure


 

Introduction

This webquest will help you to persuade the members of your family to improve their eating habits.

Task 

This webquest starts with assigned readings on healthy eating to help determine the aims for dietary practices. Next, compare your community (nearest Health Region) to these healthy eating practices and to those of other Canadian communities. Then track the eating habits of your family members and prepare a plan to improve their eating habits in the future.

Process

Don't forget to take notes on your webquest actitivities in your Personal Health Journal.

  1. Learn the basics about healthy eating by reading the following sections of Canada Food Guide on the Health Canada Site:

    Order the Food Guide from Health Canada for your family. You will be using the Food Guide to help you analyze your family’s nutrition profile

    Prepare a short report on these assigned readings using Section 3.1 of your Personal Health Journal. You will need to submit this report as part of this webquest.
     

  2. Next, you will prepare graphs comparing food consumption patterns of Canadians, your province and your community. Examine the per capita food group consumption (purchase) patterns of Canadians from 1990 to 2001. Prepare a simple line graph to show the evolution of each food group. Read the report on the latest data.

    See the criteria for evaluating line and bar graphs before you prepare your graph.
     

  3. Next, you will examine the importance of fruits and vegetables and then prepare a different type of graph to show how well your community and family are eating.

    Read Health Report 2000-13-3. Fruit and Vegetable Consumption.

    Access the Health Indicators statistics published by Statistics Canada and locate the statistics on Dietary Practices to examine the consumption of fruits and Vegetables for the Health Region closest to you.

    Note: Read our student tool on
    Using Statistics Canada Data and Reports  to learn how to access their information.

    Note: Your teacher may need to register your school with Statistics Canada in order to access some reports and articles.)

    Compare the consumption of fruits and vegetables in your Health Region to the average in your province/territory and to the Canadian average. Also compare the consumption of fruits and vegetables in your Health Region to the recommended daily servings of fruit and vegetables contained in the Canada Food Guide. Prepare a bar graph to show those comparisons.

    See the Criteria for Line and Bar Graphs before you prepare your graph.

  1. Next, you will ask your parents or another trusted adult to participate in this webquest by completing an analysis of their and your typical eating habits.

    Using the web site of the Dieticians of Canada, prepare a nutrition profile for your parents and for yourself. For this task you and your parents will have to complete the profile for a typical day of eating. It will take about five minutes for each person to complete the survey. If you don’t have access to the Internet at home, print out the questions and ask your parents to complete the survey in print, then go and enter their answers on the Nutrition Profile web page.
     

  2. Ask your parents if your family can Identify three realistic targets for change in your nutrition profile over the next three months. Before you begin, read Healthy eating: success starts with small changes, this article applies a coach's strategy to developing a dietary game plan, that is, making small improvements each day Schedule a time with your parents to review progress every month.

    See section 4.1 of your Personal Health Journal for some tips on how to create and maintain a personal health plan. Know where to find a dietitian if you would like special help in planning your family meals or if a member of your family has a specific eating-related problem.

    Prepare a brief summary and commentary on your experience in analyzing your family’s food consumption patterns and trying to prepare a personal health plan to improve your eating habits. Use the Evaluation Criteria for Writing Summaries and Commentaries  to guide your writing of that part of this webquest.

  1. Record your private thoughts in Section 4.3 of your Personal Health Journal.

How Your Work will be Evaluated

See your teacher about how each of these criteria will be applied to your webquest. Your notes on the assigned reading will be evaluated on how well you have followed Section 3.1 of your Personal Health Journal. The Evaluation Criteria for Line and Bar Graphs will be used to assess your statistical comparisons. The Evaluation Criteria for Personal Health Action Plans will be used to assess your progress in your health plan. The Evaluation Criteria for Writing Summaries and Commentaries  will be used to assess your effort in preparing a family health plan for better nutrition.

Conclusions and Extensions

As an extension of this webquest, you can engage your family in trying to improve other aspects of your health, such as physical activity.

You can also take the nutrition webquest that is closely related to this one, where you will compare the eating habits and related knowledge of your friends and classmates.

Want to talk with someone about these issues? Why not call the Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868 or visit their web site.
Also read these tips on how to use Hotline Information.