Encouraging Healthy Eating

Bringing food for your students does not mean that you have to buy pizza, load on the Doritos, or arm yourself with two-liter Cokes.

I brought in bunches of red grapes for my 10th graders one morning last year, and I was pleasantly surprised by their reaction: "Oooooh. Grapes! Thank you, miss!" Not a single one complained that I hadn't brought in candy or doughnuts or chips (or any of the other crap they usually eat), and each filed in line to grab some to take back to their seats.

I wish that we could encourage healthier eating in our students. It starts with the way we eat. So often curious kids will peek in my office to ask me what I'm eating ("Hummus? What's that?"), but they see me drinking a Starbucks chai latte or eating chocolate just as often. It makes me cringe to think that I (and other adults) model the things we probably wouldn't want our kids to do.

What if we brought our students hummus and flatbread instead of chips? What if we took our students out to dinner to try the bold flavors of vegetarian Indian instead of encouraging them to eat a 10-piece McNugget meal? We complain that our youth are rapidly becoming overweight. If this is the case, then we should be doing something about it instead of idly flapping our gums.