3.1: Decode My Nutrition Label

National Health Education Standards (NHES)

• 1.12.5 Come up with ways—like reading a nutrition label—to prevent or lower health problems.
• 7.12.2 Show healthy habits, like reading a nutrition label, that help keep you and others healthy.

Wellness Guideline

• Eat less fast food.

Instructions: Work in a group, with a partner, or think on your own about these questions. Teachers should notice who is making progress on their goals. Anyone who wants help changing their goal can get one-on-one support.

Talk About It: Our SMART Goals

• How is your SMART goal going so far?
• What are some ways you could do better with your goal? (These are called "Grows.")
• What are some ways you're already doing well with your goal? (These are called "Glows.")

Guideline: Eat Less Fast Food

Talk About It: Which guideline do you think matches today's lesson? Does anyone have a SMART goal about this guideline?

Instructions: Pick one activity to do.

1. Guideline Popcorn: As a group, quickly call out all 8 guidelines, one after another.
2. Guideline Charades: Split into groups. Each group gets a guideline and must act it out silently while others guess.
3. Two Truths and One Lie:
4. Truth 1: A 30-ounce sweet tea has as much sugar as two candy bars.
5. Truth 2: A large order of fries is one of the unhealthiest snacks you can eat. It has almost 1,500 calories and 71 grams of fat.
6. Lie: Fast food is a lot cheaper than groceries. A fast food meal costs about $7 per person. For a family of four, that adds up to about $28. But you could buy a whole chicken and vegetables at the grocery store and feed the same family for half that price!
7. Questions to talk or write about:
8. How often do you eat fast food or junk food? What do you usually eat, and where?
9. Why do people eat junk food and fast food so often?
10. What healthier choices could you make at a fast food restaurant?
11. What are some healthier snacks you could pick instead?

Learning Goal

Learn how to read a nutrition label so you can pick healthier foods.

Materials Needed

• Worksheets
• Slide presentation
• A piece of fruit and a fruit-flavored food item (or pictures of both)
• A large nutrition label (on a slide, poster, or drawn on the board)
• Pictures comparing older and newer nutrition labels
• 18 blank cards (6x9 inches or bigger)
• 8 food items (packages or printed labels with pictures)
• Paper

Key Vocabulary

• Nutrition: Giving your body the food it needs to stay alive and healthy. It means eating the right foods so you can grow and feel good.
• Serving Size: A set amount of food, like one cup or one ounce. It helps you figure out how many calories and nutrients are in that food.
• Calorie: A unit used to measure how much energy is in food and drinks, and how much energy your body uses.
• Cholesterol: A substance found in animal foods. Your body uses it to help make certain hormones and other things it needs.
• Sodium: Often eaten as salt. Small amounts help keep your nerves and muscles working well.
• Fiber: A part of plant foods that your body can't fully digest. It helps you feel full and helps your body get rid of waste.
• Sugar: A simple type of carbohydrate found naturally in foods, like the sugar in milk or in fruit.
• Added Sugar: Sugar or syrup that is added to food to make it sweeter. This does not include the natural sugar already found in fruit or milk.
• Vitamins/Minerals: Nutrients that come from plants and animals. They help boost your immune system, which fights off sickness.
• Daily Value: A number that shows how much of a nutrient is in a food, based on a 2,000-calorie diet.
• Ingredient List: A list of everything in a food or drink, ordered from the ingredient used the most to the ingredient used the least.

Lesson Parts

1. Do Now
2. Why Do Foods Have Labels?
3. Decoding the Nutrition Label
4. Scavenger Hunt
5. Exit Ticket

Do Now

Instructions: Have students answer this question on their worksheet or share out loud:

Pretend you just won the lottery. What would you do with all that money?

Talk About It:
Even if we bought a lottery ticket every single day, we still couldn't control whether we'd win. There are many things in life we can't control. But we can control some things about our health. Building healthy habits now helps us keep those habits as we grow up.

Good to Know: Why Do Foods Have Labels?

Talk About It:
What does "nutrition" mean? It means giving your body the food it needs to live and grow.

Some foods give your body better energy and nutrients than others. How can we tell which foods are the best fuel for our bodies? By reading the nutrition label!

If someone put a blindfold on you and asked you to eat something without knowing what it was, would you do it? Probably not! That's why it's important to read nutrition labels — so you know exactly what you're eating.

Instructions:
Hold up a piece of fruit next to a fruit-flavored food. For example: a strawberry next to strawberry ice cream, an apple next to apple-flavored cereal, a blueberry next to a blueberry breakfast tart, or a tomato next to ketchup.

(If you don't have real food, use pictures instead.)

Talk About It:
Why do some foods have labels while others don't?

Whole foods, like fruits and vegetables, don't need labels. That's because they only have one ingredient — themselves, in their natural form!

For example, what are the ingredients in an apple? Just apple! Other foods have labels for two reasons: they come in packaging, or they've been changed from their natural state (processed).

Can you think of other whole foods? Here are some examples:

• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Lettuce
• Banana
• Orange
• Egg
• Plain, unprocessed pork
• Salmon

Hands-On: Decoding the Nutrition Label

Talk About It:
How many of you have read a nutrition label before? It can look confusing, but let's break it into smaller pieces so it's easier to understand.

Instructions:
Use a large nutrition label (like the example below) to help students understand each part and how it affects their health. Label the parts like this:

• "Start here" — next to Serving Size
• "Check calories" — next to Calories
• "Limit these nutrients" — draw a red box around Trans Fat, Cholesterol, and Sodium. Ask: Should the % Daily Value be low or high for these? (Low!)
• "Get enough of these nutrients" — draw a green box around Fiber, Vitamins, and Minerals. Ask: Should the % Daily Value be low or high for these? (High!)
• "5% or less is low, and 20% or more is high" — next to % Daily Value
• "Greatest to least" — next to the Ingredient List

Note: Fat, Carbohydrates, and Protein are called macronutrients. They're explained more in the lesson "Mighty Macronutrients."

Old Labels vs. New Labels

Instructions:
Show a picture comparing the old and new nutrition labels. Point out where the changes appear.

Talk About It:
In 2016, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) created a new nutrition label for packaged foods. Their goal was to make it easier for people to choose healthier foods.

This change is happening slowly, but you'll start seeing the new label more and more. By 2020, most food companies had to start using it.

What are some differences between the old and new labels? Why do you think these changes were made?

• Serving size is now bigger and bolder. This makes it easier to notice.
• Serving sizes have been updated to match what people actually eat and drink today. Since eating habits have changed since the old label was made, the serving sizes needed updating too. Some serving sizes went up, and some went down — because by law, they must show what people actually eat, not what they should eat.
• Calories are shown in a bigger font. This makes them easier to notice.
• "Calories from fat" was removed. Research shows the type of fat matters more than the amount.
• A new "Added Sugars" section was added (shown in grams and % Daily Value), to help people notice how much added sugar they're eating.
• Daily values for sodium, fiber, and vitamin D were updated based on newer research.
• The list of required vitamins and minerals changed. Vitamin D and potassium are now required on labels, since many Americans don't get enough of them. Vitamins A and C are no longer required, since it's rare for people today to lack those vitamins.
• Exact amounts of vitamins/minerals (in grams or milligrams) are now shown, not just the percentage. This makes it easier to know if you're getting enough.
• A new footnote was added to better explain what "% Daily Value" means.

Matching Activity Setup

Instructions:
Make 18 cards (or pieces of paper) for a matching game.

• Each card should have a label on one side (like 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, etc.) and a word or definition on the other side.
• Use the list below to create the cards. Split them into two piles: (a) terms and (b) definitions.
• Hand out the cards before class, or hide them under students' chairs ahead of time. Whoever gets a card is responsible for reading it and finding its match during the activity.

Example card:

• 1a: Serving Size
• 1b: A standard amount of food, like a cup or an ounce, used to help calculate the calories and nutrients in that food.