Simply giving kids factual information about the effects of junk food on their health has proven time and again to be insufficient in convincing them to change their eating behaviour. But when we engage their emotions, and cloak it in games and activities, the results can be quite different…
If educators themselves become more personally involved in curriculum activities
and leverage children’s own natural desires for improved emotional
health and quality of life, results improve significantly.
The inclusion of study units on diet and health are standard content in the health class curricula of elementary and secondary schools across the developed world today. But current and previous approaches have not enjoyed much success in getting kids to move their eating habits away from relatively heavy junk food consumption towards an emphasis on healthier food and increased physical activity. But researchers in Brazil have discovered that if educators themselves become more personally involved in curriculum activities and leverage children’s own natural desires for improved emotional health and quality of life, results improve significantly.
What they did
Researchers from the Institute of Cardiology of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, developed a a study guide that incorporated their suggestions about emotional engagement, which they dubbed The Happy Life, Healthy Heart programme and randomly allocated ten public schools in the city of Frederico Westphalen, Brazil, to the intervention group (five schools) or control group (five schools). The study included 473 students aged 6 to 12 and 32 teachers. Baseline assessments included weight, height, physical activity, food intake, and health knowledge in children; and physical activity and food consumption in teachers. Measurements were repeated after the intervention was completed.
For the control group schools, teachers did not participate in the training course and students attended the school’s usual classes about health and healthy eating based on the usual curriculum.
What they found
The proportion of students in the intervention group following Brazilian Food Guide’s advice to avoid pizza/hamburgers and soft drinks increased significantly by 15% and 20%, respectively.
But what really surprised (and gratified) researchers was that the teachers involved with the intervention group activities also responded to the program, with 28 percent of them voluntarily becoming more physically active.
The takeway
Study author Dr. Carolinne Santin Dal Ri says: “Children in both the intervention and control groups increased their level of health knowledge during the study. But only those in the intervention group changed their eating behaviours. This suggests that information on its own does not lead to lifestyle improvements. In our study, [only the] program that combined information with playful activities and emotional support was beneficial for children and teachers.”
My take
That makes sense, given the way elementary-aged (pre-teen) kids structure their lives and learn about the world. Anyone who has ever dealt with children in that age group can tell you, kids learn by participation in play and other activities which are similarly structured, and by interaction with, and following the example of other kids (and adults involved) who they admire. Just furnish information without a structured participation-oriented program and they’re not interested.
I think it should be obvious that teaching units and programs other subject areas, structured similarly to the health info intervention, should yield significant improvements in how those curricula are seen and absorbed by elementary-aged kids. Now, that’s a potentially huge breakthrough in teaching and education overall!
BTW… Like the researchers, I was pleasantly surprised by the response and reaction of the teachers included in the intervention program. I suggest that they will be able to transfer something of their own emotional engagement and positive thoughts about the information to future classroom groups.
~ Maggie J.