Nutrition And Wellness Unit 3 Activity 1
Can someone please answer this
Even though you have begun to take responsibility for your own health, it’s likely that you still depend on your parents or family to some extent. That’s why becoming healthier works better if everyone in the family is involved. In this activity and the ones to follow, you will create a personalized plan for your own family geared toward increasing everyone’s health. Then you’ll learn how to execute that plan!
Step 1: Make a Checklist
What does it take to be healthy? You’ve learned that several things are involved. In a word processing document, take what you have learned about how to be healthy and create a checklist of the components that are needed when creating a plan to improve your overall health and fitness.
Remember to specifically note important exercise and dietary habits. Be specific—you know that exercise is needed, for example, but what types of exercise? What about risky behaviors? Put those on the checklist as things to avoid.
Step 2: Self-Evaluation
Once you have created a health checklist, use it to evaluate your own family’s health. Use different colors to highlight or put check marks by each item—use one color to show things your family already does (their strengths) and another to show areas your family might improve. Do you or anyone else in the family engage in risky behaviors? What positive steps can you take to make healthier choices?
After filling out your checklist with your own opinions, show the checklist to at least one of your family members to see if they have any other ideas.
Step 3: Identifying Potential Issues
Every family faces challenges when it comes to staying healthy. Your family is unique and has its own unique challenges. Under a special heading, list some challenges that your family faces in particular. For example, do you have limited resources? A busy schedule? Does one or more of your family members have special dietary or exercise needs?
To help you think of solutions to these issues, ask your family members or friends for advice. At the bottom of your checklist, write down the suggestions that came from others and place stars next to the ones you will incorporate into your plan.
Step 4: Create a Family Plan
Now it’s time to take all of the information you have gathered and use it to create a plan for your own family. On a separate word processing document, design a weekly planner for your family. Think about your checklist…include regular habits that your family already has in place and the possible places where improvements could be made.
Time to Get Moving!
On your planner for the week, include some of the health needs you have identified, such as getting different types of exercise. Show how your family can work this exercise into their schedule.
Let’s Eat!
Next, incorporate meals into your planner. You don’t need to identify specific meals but show how certain goals can be reached or challenges overcome. For example, if you believe that your family needs to eat more vegetables, perhaps make note of what days you might incorporate an extra serving at dinner. Or maybe you could make an evening like ‘Meatless Mondays,’ where your family cuts out meat in favor of a vegetarian option. If your family’s challenge has more to do with a busy schedule, you might note some time for food prep or assign preparing meals on different nights to different people.
Finally, consider medical conditions. Think of two that may either exist currently or ones that may arise in the future and list them. How would someone with these conditions still meet their nutritional needs. Incorporate this into your plan. This will help you to see how a menu must be tweaked to accommodate special needs.
Remember that big changes work best if you set and reach small goals. Your plan needs to be realistic, creating small changes in your family’s routine that will eventually lead to big health benefits over the long haul!
Your Family Health Checklist and Family Health Plan are your deliverables for this activity.