Nutrition Hotlist

1. “Food and Nutrition Information Center”: www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/

This website is great for finding facts and statistics about nutrition. There are several links that lead to infinite information. The site is great, but a little bit overwhelming because of all the information available. There is a link specifically designed for teachers, and it offers information about appropriate after-school snacks, childhood obesity, and age-specific nutrition tips.

2. “American Diabetic Association”: www.eatright.org/Public/

Another informative website, this page offers specific information about dairy, the benefits of fruits and vegetables, and other popular food tips. A few of the links offer healthy recipes, and even give a seven-day diet plan for including dairy into your diet as a way to burn fat and calories. There is a link that also provides hints that can help parents to get the entire family on a healthy eating plan, providing reasons why a healthy diet is especially important for children.

3. “Nutrition Café”: http://exhibits.pacsi.org/nutrition/

This site is specially designed for children. This would be a great site for elementary students to use in order to help their students learn about healthy eating in a fun and creative way. There are several games on the site that inform the players about food, help the players create their own menus, and several other fun activities.

4. “Nutrition Facts, Calorie Counter…” http://www.nutritiondata.com/

This site is neat, as well as interesting, because it gives the nutrition facts about several fast food meals. Because many of us, and our students, eat out on occasion, it is fun to look on the site and find out what our favorite meals really contain. It also has a list of the 50 most popular foods, which is also interesting to look at.

5. “Nutrition Exploration”: http://www.nutritionexplorations.org/

What a perfect page for everyone! This site has a link for kids, another for parents, one for educators, and finally, one for the school food service! The kids can have fun “making Dracula’s milk” while the parents learn how to help their kids eat less Halloween candy…and the educators can get ideas about how to teach nutrition in school.

6. “Fitness. Com”: http://en.fitness.com/

This site is geared towards adults, but has a wealth of information that is almost too much to be educational! It has nutrition facts; information about work out equipment, explanations of why working out is good for the body and much, much more. You can click on any link that interests you, and spend hours reading the information.

7. “The Fitness Jumpsite”: http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/

Much easier to navigate than “Fitness. Com”, this website has tons of great information about exercise and nutrition…there is an activity calculator to help put your usual physical activity in perspective and help you learn how many calories you burn doing different activities. There is also a link that discusses getting active and staying fit.

8. “The United States Department of Health and Human Services”: http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/beinghealthy/

This site is helpful for finding both nutrition and fitness information for adults, teachers and kids. It has a manageable amount of useful information, and is not overwhelming at all.

9. “The Nutrition Society”: http://www.nutritionsociety.org/

This is an attractive website, because it has just enough links to get some useful information, but not too many to be mind-boggling. It has interesting information about the science and chemistry of food, and how to eat and stay healthy. It has the latest new in food, and it even discusses current job options in the field of “food”. This site is definitely entertaining.

10. “Nutrition for Kids”: http://nutritionforkids.com/

This site is neat because it has nutrition activity books that the kids can work on…but you have to pay for them! It is a shopping site (kind of), but it still has great books and ideas and activities for teachers, parents and kids.

Reflection: I found this assignment very entertaining and educational. There are just so many great resources out there to help children (and adults!) get educated about their health, fitness and nutrition. Doing this assignment opened my eyes to the dangers of ignorance when it comes to how you treat your body. On some of these sites I read about mal-nutrition and obesity (both conditions that are very prevelant in schools today), and I realized that some of our students lives may actually depend on learning about how to care for their bodies.