3.1: Decode My Nutrition Label

What This Lesson Is About

This lesson helps you understand two important skills: reading a nutrition label so you can make healthier food choices, and thinking about ways to eat less fast food.

Wellness Goal: Eat less fast food.

Getting Started: In a group, or with a partner, talk about your progress on your personal health goals (sometimes called SMART Goals—goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound). Share:

• How is your current goal going?
• What are some ways you could improve ("grows")?
• What are some things you're doing well ("glows")?

Connecting to Today's Topic: Which guideline do you think connects to today's lesson? Does anyone have a goal related to eating less fast food?

Warm-Up Activity: Pick One

Choose one of these activities to explore the topic of fast food:

1. Guideline Popcorn: As a group, quickly call out all 8 wellness guidelines, one person after another ("popcorn style").

1. Guideline Charades: Split into small groups. Each group gets a guideline and must act it out silently while everyone else guesses what it is.

1. Two Truths and One Lie: Can you guess which statement is false?
2. Truth: A 30-ounce sweet tea contains as much sugar as two candy bars.
3. Truth: 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.
4. Lie: Fast food is much cheaper than groceries. Actually, an average fast food meal costs about $7 per person. For a family of four, that adds up to about $28. Compare that to buying a whole chicken and vegetables at the grocery store—you could feed the same family for about half the price!

1. Discussion or Journal Questions:
2. How often do you eat fast food or junk food? What do you usually order, and where?
3. Why do you think people eat junk food and fast food so often?
4. What choices could help you eat healthier when you're at a fast food restaurant?
5. What are some healthier snacks you could choose instead?

Main Topic: Learning to Read a Nutrition Label

Materials Needed

• Worksheets and slide presentation
• A piece of fruit (or a picture of one) and a fruit-flavored food item (or its label)
• A large nutrition label (as a slide, poster, or drawing)
• Pictures comparing older and newer nutrition labels
• 18 blank cards for a matching game
• 8 food items or their labels
• Paper

Key Vocabulary

• Nutrition: The process of eating the right foods so your body can stay healthy and grow properly.
• Serving Size: A standard amount of food (like one cup or one ounce) used to measure calories and nutrients.
• Calorie: A unit that measures how much energy is in food or drink, and how much energy your body uses.
• Cholesterol: A substance found in animal foods. Your body uses it to build certain hormones and other important substances.
• Sodium: Found mostly in salt. Small amounts are needed for healthy nerves and muscles.
• Fiber: A part of plant foods that your body can't digest. It helps you feel full and keeps your digestion running smoothly.
• Sugar: A simple carbohydrate that occurs naturally in foods, like the lactose in milk or the fructose in fruit.
• Added Sugar: Sugar or syrup that manufacturers add to food to make it sweeter. This does not include natural sugars already in fruit or milk.
• Vitamins/Minerals: Nutrients from plants and animals that help boost your immune system.
• Daily Value: A percentage on the label that shows how much of a nutrient is in one serving, based on a 2,000-calorie diet.
• Ingredient List: A list showing everything in a food or drink, ordered from the largest amount to the smallest.

Lesson Steps

1. Do Now (warm-up question)
2. Why Do Foods Have Labels?
3. Decoding the Nutrition Label
4. Scavenger Hunt
5. Exit Ticket

Do Now

Question to answer (on paper or out loud): Imagine you just won the lottery. What would you do with all that money?

Discussion: Even if we played the lottery every single day, we couldn't control whether we won. There's a lot in life we can't control—but our health is something we can influence. Building healthy habits now helps us keep them for the rest of our lives.

Good to Know: Why Do Foods Have Labels?

Discussion:

• What does "nutrition" mean? It's the process of eating food that keeps your body alive and healthy.
• Some foods give your body better fuel than others.
• How can we tell which foods are the healthiest choice? By reading the nutrition label!
• Imagine being blindfolded and asked to eat something without knowing what it is. Would you do it? Probably not! That's why reading nutrition labels matters—it helps you know exactly what you're eating.

Activity: Your teacher will show you a piece of fruit next to a fruit-flavored food item—for example, a real strawberry next to strawberry ice cream, or an apple next to apple-flavored cereal.

Discussion:

• Why do some foods have nutrition labels while others don't?
• Whole foods, like fruits and vegetables, don't need labels because they only have one "ingredient"—themselves! They're in their natural, unprocessed form.
• For example, what are the ingredients in an apple? Just... apple! Other foods need labels for two reasons: either they come in packaging, or they've been processed or changed from their natural state.
• Can you think of other whole foods? Examples include broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, bananas, oranges, eggs, unprocessed pork, and salmon.

Hands-On: Decoding the Nutrition Label

Discussion: How many of you already read nutrition labels? They can look complicated at first, but if we break them into smaller parts, they become much easier to understand.

Activity: Using a large nutrition label as a reference, here's how each part works:

• "Start here" — right next to the Serving Size.
• "Check calories" — right next to the Calories section.
• "Limit these nutrients" — this applies to Trans Fat, Cholesterol, and Sodium. For these, should the percent Daily Value be low or high? (Answer: lower is better.)
• "Get enough of these nutrients" — this applies to fiber, vitamins, and minerals. For these, should the percent Daily Value be low or high? (Answer: higher is better.)
• "5% or less is low, and 20% or more is high" — this rule applies to the percent Daily Value column.
• "Greatest to least" — this describes how the Ingredient List is organized, from the largest amount to the smallest.

Note: Fat, Carbohydrates, and Protein are called macronutrients—these are covered in a separate lesson called "Mighty Macronutrients."

Old Labels vs. New Labels

In 2016, the FDA (the government agency that oversees food safety) announced a new nutrition label design for packaged foods. The goal was to make it easier for people to make informed choices about what they eat. This change is happening gradually, but by 2020, most food companies were required to switch to the new label.

What changed, and why?

• Serving size is now bolded and in larger font — This makes it easier to notice. Serving sizes were also updated to match what people actually eat and drink today, since eating habits have changed since the original label was created. Some serving sizes went up, and others went down, because by law, serving sizes must reflect what people typically eat—not what they should eat.

• Calories are now in a larger font — This makes them easier to spot. The "calories from fat" line was removed, because research shows that the type of fat you eat matters more than the total amount.

• A new "added sugars" section was added (shown in grams and percent Daily Value) — This helps people see how much sugar has been added to their food, encouraging them to eat less of it.

• Daily values for sodium, fiber, and vitamin D were updated — based on newer scientific research.

• The list of required nutrients changed: Vitamin D and potassium are now required on the label, while vitamins A and C are no longer required. This is because many Americans don't get enough vitamin D and potassium, while deficiencies in vitamins A and C are now rare.

• Actual amounts of vitamins and minerals are now shown in grams or milligrams, not just as a percentage — This makes it easier to understand exactly how much of each nutrient you're getting.

• A new footnote was added — to better explain what "percent Daily Value" actually means.