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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
I’m Brooke Selb, a Personal Trainer and Health Coach specializing in helping busy moms and moms to be to easily juggle mom life with family friendly recipes, and easy exercise routines to help you achieve your fitness goals that fit in with your already busy life with sound nutritional advice.
So great it’s working! I am addicted to lemon lime soda water like a boss.
Let’s try not to tell your students all the food we had with us for chase the moon! We did not have soda with us, but that might have helped at 5 am.
And david likes fast food on road trips and I never, ever get it. I always push for subway as a last resort, but usually we can find a subway near whatever he gets.
Drink all the soda water! It’s so delicious and breaks up the monotony of water, which is basically all I drink. Yes, Subway is the best fast food, though my kids don’t think it is fast food.
I totally and completely agree with you. My sister and brother are in (or soon to be in) their teen and it drives me nuts that my parents let them take in so much sugar. My mom thinks soda is fine if its caffeine free, and bottle teas are great because they are tea. I’m like hello the sugar!! Both my father and my sister are pre-diabetic. They all tell me I’m a crazy health nut, and not normal, which gives them ground to dismiss everything is say about health. I could talk about this for days. It seriously drives me up the wall.
I am so sorry to hear that they are pre-diabetic. It’s funny that the definition of a health nut now is just being conscious about the foods you eat. I would just call that smart.
Great post! When I was teaching last year, I brought in water with lemons in it and it sparked conversation with the students. They were asking all these questions. We also had a lot of movement. I agree with you – we need to have better role models!
It’s amazing how many questions they have that aren’t getting asked/answered at home. I want to have a class that is all about healthy eating, especially for the girls!
What a great lesson for your students especially since it isn’t just words but teaching by example.
They definitely think I am a strange duck for all my salads and fruit.
Oh my gosh, yes, our kids’ diets are terrible. I always ask, “Wait, aren’t you an athlete? How do you think this is going to affect your performance?” My kids always think it’s weird that I eat raw vegetables with no ranch dressing (I do eat in front of my classes, because we don’t get lunch til 1, so whatever. I’m starving).
YOu know, I know I didn’t eat the best when I was in HS, but I don’t think I ate as terribly as they did. I still had a basic understanding that the junk I was eating was bad and was going to hurt my practice. It seems like these kiddos honestly don’t know what’s good and bad for their bodies.