3.1: Decode My Nutrition Label

National Health Education Standards (NHES)

• 1.12.5 – Suggest ways, such as reading a nutrition label, to reduce or prevent health problems.
• 7.12.2 – Practice healthy habits and behaviors, such as reading a nutrition label, that support the health of yourself and others.

Wellness Guideline

• Eat less fast food.

Instructions for the group: Working in pairs or small groups, discuss the questions below. Recognize anyone who has made progress toward their goals, and offer one-on-one support to anyone who wants to change or adjust a goal.

Discussion — Let's Talk SMART Goals

• How is your current SMART goal going?
• What are some ways you could improve your progress? (These are called "Grows.")
• What are some things you're already doing well? (These are called "Glows.")

Guideline: Decrease Fast Food Consumption

Discussion: Which guideline do you think connects to today's lesson? Does anyone have a SMART goal tied to this guideline?

Instructions: Choose one of the following activities.

1. Guideline Popcorn – As a group, call out all eight guidelines as quickly as possible, "popcorn style" (random order, one person at a time).

1. Guideline Charades – Split into small groups. Each group gets a guideline and must act it out silently while the rest of the class guesses.

1. Two Truths and One Lie
2. Truth 1: A 30-ounce sweet tea contains as much sugar as two candy bars.
3. Truth 2: A large order of fries is one of the least healthy snacks you can choose — nearly 1,500 calories and 71 grams of fat.
4. Lie: Fast food is much cheaper than groceries. A fast food meal averages around $7, which might seem reasonable for one person — but for a family of four, that adds up to about $28. In fact, you could feed that same family a whole roasted chicken with vegetables from the grocery store for half the price.

1. Discussion or Journal Questions:
2. How often do you eat fast food or junk food? What do you usually eat, and where?
3. Why do people eat junk food and fast food regularly?
4. What healthier choices could you make at fast food restaurants?
5. What are some healthier snack options?

Goal for Today: Learn to Read a Nutrition Label to Make Healthier Food Choices

Materials Needed

• Worksheets
• Slide presentation
• A piece of fruit and a fruit-flavored food item (or pictures of both)
• A large, easy-to-read nutrition label (as a slide, poster, or drawing on the board)
• An image comparing old and new nutrition labels (slide, poster, or board drawing)
• 18 blank index cards (6x9 inches or larger)
• 8 food items — either actual packages or printed labels with pictures
• Paper

Key Vocabulary

(Sources: Merriam-Webster, n.d.; USDA & HHS, 2015; Kirkpatrick, 2015; Zeratsky, 2016; Tremblay, n.d.)

• Nutrition: The food supply your cells and body need to stay alive — essentially, eating the right foods so you can be healthy and grow properly.
• Serving Size: A standard amount of food (like a cup or an ounce) used to calculate the calories and nutrients in that food.
• Calorie: A unit used to measure the energy in food and drinks, as well as the energy your body uses.
• Cholesterol: A substance found in animal products. It serves as a building block for certain hormones and other things your body needs.
• Sodium: Commonly consumed as table salt (sodium chloride). In small amounts, it's essential for healthy nerves and muscles.
• Fiber: A carbohydrate found naturally in plants that your body can't digest. It helps you feel full and keeps your digestive system regular.
• Sugar: A simple carbohydrate found naturally in foods — for example, lactose in milk or fructose in fruit.
• Added Sugar: Syrups and other sweeteners added to food products during processing. This does not include sugars that occur naturally in fruit or milk.
• Vitamins/Minerals: Nutrients from plants and animals that help support your immune system.
• Daily Value: A percentage showing how much of a certain nutrient is in a food, based on a 2,000-calorie daily diet.
• Ingredient List: A list of everything in a food or drink, ordered from the ingredient with the greatest amount (by weight) to the least.

Lesson Outline

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

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Do Now

Instructions: Have participants answer the following question on their worksheet or share it aloud:

Imagine you just won the lottery. What would you do with the money?

Discussion:
Even if we bought a lottery ticket every single day for the rest of our lives, we'd still have no control over whether our number wins. We can't control everything in life — but we can control quite a bit when it comes to our health. Building healthy habits now makes it easier to keep those habits going in the future.

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Good to Know: Why Do Foods Have Labels?

Discussion:
What does "nutrition" mean? It's the supply of food that cells and living things need to stay alive and function.

Some foods provide better energy and nutrients than others. So how do we figure out which foods will fuel our bodies best? By reading the nutrition label.

Here's a thought experiment: if you were blindfolded and handed food to eat, would you eat it without knowing what it was? Probably not. That's exactly why nutrition labels matter — they tell you what you're actually eating.

Instructions:
Hold up a piece of fruit alongside a nutrition label from a fruit-flavored product — for example, a real strawberry next to strawberry ice cream, an apple next to apple-flavored cereal, a blueberry next to a blueberry breakfast pastry, or a tomato next to ketchup.

(If you don't have real fruit on hand, a photo works too.)

Discussion:
Why do some foods have labels while others don't?

Whole foods — like fruits and vegetables — don't need nutrition labels because they only have one "ingredient": themselves, in their natural state. For example, what are the ingredients in an apple? Just... apple!

Other foods need labels for one of two reasons: either they're packaged, or they've been processed or changed from their natural form.

Can you name other examples of whole foods? Some examples include:

• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Lettuce
• Banana
• Orange
• Egg
• Unprocessed pork
• Salmon

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Hands-On Activity: Decoding the Nutrition Label

Discussion:
How many of you actually read nutrition labels? They can look complicated at first glance — but let's break the label into smaller pieces so the whole thing makes more sense.

Instructions:
Prepare a large, easy-to-see nutrition label (see example). Walk the group through each part, explaining how it connects to their overall health. Label the following sections:

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

Note: Fat, Carbohydrates, and Protein are called macronutrients — nutrients your body needs in large amounts. These are covered in more detail in the lesson "Mighty Macronutrients."

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Instructions:
Show the image comparing the older nutrition label to the newer one, using a slide, projector, or printed poster. As students notice differences, point out exactly where those changes appear on the updated label.

Discussion:
In 2016, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) announced a new nutrition label design for packaged foods, aiming to make it easier for people to make informed choices about what they eat. Rolling out the new label has been a gradual process, but you'll see it more and more — by 2020, most food companies were required to switch to it.

What differences do you notice between the old and new labels, and why do you think each change was made?

• Serving size information is bolded and in a larger font.

→ This makes the information easier to spot and draws more attention to it.

• Serving sizes have been updated to reflect what people actually eat and drink today.

→ What counts as "one serving" has changed since the original label was created decades ago. By law, serving sizes must reflect how much people typically eat — not how much they should eat. As a result, some serving sizes increased while others decreased.

• Calories are shown in a larger font.

→ Again, this draws more attention to key information.

• "Calories from fat" was removed.

→ Research now shows that the type of fat you eat matters more than the total amount of fat.

• A new "added sugars" section was added (shown in grams and % Daily Value).

→ This helps people notice how much added sugar they're consuming, encouraging them to cut back.

• Daily values for nutrients like sodium, dietary fiber, and vitamin D were updated.

→ These changes reflect newer scientific research.

• The list of required and optional nutrients changed: Vitamin D and potassium are now required on the label, while Vitamin A and Vitamin C are no longer required.

→ Vitamin D and potassium are now required because many Americans don't get enough of them. Vitamins A and C are no longer required because deficiencies in these vitamins are now rare.

• Actual amounts of certain vitamins and minerals (in grams or milligrams) are now included, not just the % Daily Value.

→ This makes it easier to understand exactly how much of a nutrient you're getting, and whether that's enough.

• A new footnote was added.

→ It better explains what "% Daily Value" actually means.

(Source: FDA, 2018)

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Matching Activity Setup

Instructions:
Write or print 18 cards (or pieces of construction paper) for a matching game. Each card should have an identifier on one side (1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, etc.) and a term or its definition on the other side. Divide the 18 cards into two stacks: one for terms (the "a" cards) and one for definitions (the "b" cards).

Distribute the cards before class, or tape them under participants' chairs ahead of time (or during the Do Now). Whoever receives a card will be responsible for reading it and finding its match during the activity.

Example card:

• 1a: Serving Size
• 1b: A standardized amount of a food, such as a cup or an ounce, that helps you calculate the calories and nutrients in that food.