My students’ diets are atrocious. On any given day, I have students drinking Mountain Dew, Red Bull, Monster, and 23 oz Arizona Strawberry Kiwi teas. They eat things like Hot Cheetos, Hot Takis, king sized Skittles, and Cup O’ Noodles. The amount of sugar in the majority of these items is through the roof.

Being the cross country coach, and a personal trainer/healthy lifestyle blogger, I can’t help but give my students a hard time about the things they are putting into their bodies. Any time one of them brings in a drink, I make them read the sugar label and I ask what fruit or vegetable they had before they dig into their Skittles.


Cross Country Start Line

I just want them to think more about what they are eating, rather than mindlessly grabbing a chip bag from the 7-11.

And you know something? It’s working.

One student saw a can of something on my desk, marched over, picked it up, and started reprimanding me about drinking a soda, saying, “How much sugar is in this, huh?” He sheepishly put it down when he read the 0% label on my La Croix Lime Sparkling Water. (Now I do drink an occasional soda, but the point is not every day, or even every week.)

Other things my students have seen me eat (because there are always a few students in my room, not because I am eating in front of my classes) include a smoothie, a salad, a sandwich, an apple with peanut butter, trail mix, grapes, pretzel chips, tea, and water.

Green Smoothie Breakfast

Now that they’ve realized this is my norm, they have started asking a lot of questions. Here are my three favorites and my answers to them:

1. When was the last time you ate fast food? Subway and Panda Express not withstanding in their minds as fast food, it was McDonalds over a year ago. Rob and were driving across the country , just back from Vietnam, and stopped for some on-the-road lunch. We both felt sick for almost two full days.

McDonalds post Vietnam

2. What is the most unhealthy thing in your house? Chocolate and chips. A mega-sized bag of mega0-sized M&M’s caught Rob’s eye at Costco (he has a thing for M&M’s). After running 20 miles this weekend, anything salty and carb-y sounds delicious, hence the bag of chips. I don’t feel guilty about any of these things.

MEGA

3. What does your husband eat? Does he think you’re crazy? He eats the same as I do, and sometimes even better. While I give in to cheese cravings, Rob gives in to cottage cheese. While I’m happy to eat a handful of chips for dinner, Rob will actually make a sandwich.

My students are thinking and asking questions. Even though it’s not about satire and annotations, I will call it a win.

The point in this post is that our youth are eating way more sugar than they need and many are lacking positive models on what to eat. This makes these two videos even more eye-opening since the things they taste-test are things my students would devour without a second thought. (And I would too if I got my hands on those Twizzlers.)

There are so many good one-liners from this video!

  • Maybe it is repurposed washing soap.
  • Add one cup of sugar!?
  • Why didn’t you warn me?
  • I don’t think anything that blue could be nutritious.
  • Sugar…it’s the main ingredient!
  • It’s weird because you do want more of them. <—EXACTLY! We are a country addicted!
  • I can’t tell you what that is.
  • There’s no description of what it actually is.
  • It’s just a dark activity to just while away the hours to keep going until death. <–Hilarious!

My favorite quotes from this one:

  • It kind of tastes like everything and nothing.
  • But I want to have it again…I want to keep eating it.
  • That’s weird and not in a good way.
  • The sort of thing you’d give to a kid as punishment.
  • I can’t tell what fruit that was.

RQ: Do you feel there is a sugar problem among our youth? What about adults? 

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