Educating Children (in school)- What do you wish would be taught about nutrition?

portion sizes ... that what you get in the restaurants ot even what your parents give you might be way more than you need to feel satisfied.  Obvioulsy being so young not super easy to teach, but there are a few infographics out there that demonstrate portion sizes useing your hand.  palm for meat. fist for carb.  thumb for fat. 

Great idea- that would be a fairly quick teachable thing that would be good to inform them over while they are young. Thanks! Adding it to the list now.

Ah, but remember, the hand references are for adults. Won't work for little ones. They'd literally be malnourished if they followed those rules of "thumb"! 

I will be sure to research first. I feel a need to check in with a nutritionist coming on !

Food Marketing... commercials, product placement (low shelves, checkout aisles), cartoon characters (Coke Polar Bears, Ronald McDonald, etc.) Helping them become aware they are being manipulated may help stop it from happening. 

Maybe have them design a healthy food ad. 

That is for sure going to be the main component. Kids will be asked to answer the question of whether or not the government should regulate food/nutrition... not sure if I will limit it to the fast food industry or ad industry yet. Will hammer that out over the summer. But for sure they will be shown exactly how the marketing occurs and the impact. 

I think children need to be taught the importance of protein in their diets.  They need to know what foods contain it and how much they should eat a day.  My teenagers existed on carbs, as i know most do.  Even though I was constantly stressing the importance of protein, they thought a smoothie was as good for them as a few scrambled eggs. I think it's important for them to learn about protein sources and options for vegetarians to meet protein goals. I watched many of my kids "vegetarian" friends exist on McDonalds fries and crackers and know that they felt virtuous for not eating meat. They had no clue how to eat a balanced diet and meet protein goals. As we have all learned through WLS, protein is the most important nutrient. Society does not acknowledge or support this. The food pyramid still has carbs on the bottom row as the basis of a healthy diet.

I will for sure teach them how to read a nutrition label and point out that sugar is not required to show the percent of the recommended daily allowance, and protein will work into that conversation. I have been mulling over the conundrum of how guidelines and research seem to change every other month. For example, first coffee was bad, then good, then really good. I don't want to inadvertantly teach a misconception in other words. Not saying that protein isn't important- I try to go a minimum of 80g and during the weight loss phase I was 115. Felt a lot better at 115 too when compared to 80. 

Teach then how to read the labels.  And pay attention to serving sizes. And fake labels. - like net carbs. 

Teach about importance about good fats in the diet. 

Show and tell with sugar: 1tsp of sugar is 4 gr of sugar.  People have no problem eating processed meats that has 4-8 he of sugar per serving until you can show them the meat - with a side of 2 tsp of sugar. They see - they may remember that. Soda - 12 gr of sugar - 3 tsp.. Etc... 

Plus the HFCS - and show the fat around middle... Around organs...fructose is processed differently than sugar..

Also hydrogenated oils. Ants will not eat it... 

I will do some visuals with it for sure. Several years ago we had a brief program that did this, and that was really surprising to the kids.