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Unit 2 WebQuest - Internet Project

Kids Gobbling Empty Calories

Introduction | Task | Process | Guidance | Conclusion | Questions

Introduction
USA Today, April, 20
     Teens are eating 150 more calories a day in snacks than they did two decades ago. And kids of all ages are munching on more of the richer goodies between meals than children did in the past. These latest findings have national nutritionists, weight-control experts and concerned parents wondering whether snacking has run amok in the USA, contributing to the rising obesity rates of children. Researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill analyzed government data on the eating habits of more than 21,000 children, ages 2 to 18, from 1977 to the mid-1990s and found:


     All of this is a "potential trigger for obesity," says Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the School of Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill. In fact, childhood obesity is skyrocketing. About 20% to 25% are either overweight or at risk of becoming overweight, the government says.
     Snacks can be an important part of a balanced diet, especially for young children, nutritionists say. But for many families, snacks have replaced the three square meals a day because of hectic after-school schedules, early school lunch hours and unpredictable dinner times, experts say.
     People snack when they're rushed, bored, anxious. They nibble when they're watching TV and on the computer, while they're sitting at their desk, when they arrive home from school and have nothing to do.
     "Snacking has become an ingrained part of American culture," says Karen Miller-Kovach, chief scientist for Weight Watchers International. Snacking has become such a habit that some kids nibble around the clock. "Kids go to a soccer game for an hour, and someone brings a snack. They go to preschool for two hours, and 15 minutes of that is having a snack. We've ingrained the snacking habit into our children from a very, very young age. And in some ways, I think, we are doing them a disservice," Miller-Kovach says.
     For many kids, "snacking has become a leisure activity," says Keith Ayoob, a pediatric nutritionist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. "They are eating because it's there.
     "Snacking per se is fine," he says. "Unfortunately, the foods kids are eating today aren't delivering as much nutrition as they should, but they are packing a big punch when it comes to calories."
     A 9-year-old patient recently told Ayoob that when he comes home from school, he eats a smorgasbord of snacks: chips, cookies, snack cakes, sodas. Another female patient told him she buys tasty treats on the walk home from school, and several teens told him they grab fast-food meals as snacks.
     Portion distortion is a problem, says Ayoob, a spokesman for the American Dietetic Association. "A serving of soda used to be considered 6 ounces at 85 calories. Now it's 16 or 20 ounces at 250 calories. "I see teens who can polish off several of these sodas every day, and they are getting a lot of wasted calories with no real nutrition." Miller-Kovach says young people today don't have an idea of portion sizes because they've only lived in the era of supersizing.
     "Kids used to eat a small bowl of cereal. Now it's a mixing bowl," she says. "As meals get bigger, so do snacks. What was previously considered a meal is now consumed as a snack."

'Teens are constantly snacking'
     None of this surprises teens, who say their peers are piling on the calories between meals.
     Joel Holland, 16, of McLean, Va., says, "Teens are constantly snacking. I have one friend that every time I see him he's eating. His locker is loaded with soda, chips, cookies. I can't think of any guys who eat fruit — apples or oranges. They eat bags of chips."
     Brady Welch, 17, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., says many kids go to the vending machines during break. "Kids have always eaten junk food at home, and now they are eating it at school, too. We wonder why kids are getting fatter when we feed them all that junk food."
     Jessica Fitts, 16, also from Mount Pleasant, says some teens veg out in front of the TV, but many are so busy with sports and extracurricular activities that they eat a lot of snacks to maintain their energy.
     Snacks can have their place in a diet, nutrition experts say. The purpose of snacks is to fill in the nutrient gaps that are not met at meals, says registered dietitian Anna Maria Siega-Riz, another researcher on the snacking study. So if you hadn't had enough fruit or milk during the day, you might grab an apple or a yogurt or cheese stick in the afternoon, she says.
     But instead, people are eating all kinds of rich foods — cookies, cakes, candy and soda — between meals. "The things that used to serve as a treat are now becoming the everyday foods that are eaten as snacks, and that's the biggest problem," she says.
     Popkin says snacks are important for toddlers and preschoolers because their stomachs are small, and they need to keep their energy level high. They need a morning and afternoon snack, but there is no reason it can't be a glass of milk and an apple, he says.
     Plus, some older kids come home from school really ravenous, no matter how much they ate for lunch, says leading children's nutritionist Ellyn Satter. She thinks those hungry children should have something substantial, like a bowl of cereal with fruit and milk, or a piece of toast with peanut butter and a glass of milk. That snack might be at 3 or 3:30, and then they should stop eating and not graze continually until dinner time.
     This may be especially important for children who are at sports practices, dance classes or music lessons during the dinner hour. "The solution for them may be to have almost a bag lunch right after school and then they can have dinner later," says Satter, author of Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family (Kelcy Press, $16.95). "The child isn't going to eat as much at dinner, but the family meal is as important for connecting as it is for eating, and kids can eat relatively little at dinner time and still get important nutrients."
     Satter believes one reason kids and adults are indulging in more high-fat, rich foods such as chips, cakes and cookies between meals is that some families "are eating skimpy meals and then snacking a lot between times to make up for their calorie, nutritional and pleasure deficits."
     If people constantly deny themselves foods such as chips and cheesecake for dinner, then they "sneak around and eat them between meals," she says.
     Although some snacks are purchased from vending machines and fast-food restaurants, especially among teens, many are still eaten at home, Popkin says.
     Overall, snacks at home are lower in fat and higher in vitamins, minerals and fiber than those eaten out, Siega-Riz says.
     If parents would offer healthy snacks, kids would eat them, Popkin says. "We know from many other studies that when you make healthy choices available, they'll eat them. They may ask for Coke, but they'll drink milk."
     Satter says too many parents feel "enslaved by their kids' requests. If the kid wants something, the parents feel they have to gratify their children's requests." Just because they see it advertised on TV or in the aisle of the grocery store or food mart doesn't mean the parent has to buy it, she says.
     Ayoob says families' kitchen counters are too often laden with cakes, pies, cookies and a couple of rotten bananas. He recommends reversing that and putting delicious fruit on the counter, and have only a few sweet treats around. Some of his other suggestions:
  • Keep grapes on the counter or within easy reach in the refrigerator. "I call grapes the no-commitment fruit because you can grab a few impulsively without making a commitment to getting out a dish or spoon. Once you start peeling a banana, you are committed to it. The same is true with an orange," he says — although clementines, which are smaller and easy to peel, are less of a commitment.
  • Turn children loose in the produce aisle and have them pick out what they want. "Have them select a vegetable for dinner that night. Let them choose the fruit they want to eat that week for lunch. Little kids especially love this."

     Keep the choices simple. He suggests having graham crackers and cookies such as vanilla wafers around, rather than cookies and crackers with "lots of bells and whistles."

Change eating, buying habits
     "If you want kids to change their eating habits, parents have to change their eating and buying habits and be willing to put up with a certain amount of transitional resistance," Ayoob says. "Kids weren't born liking these high-calorie snacks. Eating habits are learned, and we can relearn them."
     And finally, he says, families need to find other things that they enjoy doing together — biking, roller skating, walking, playing tag in the backyard — so that snacking isn't their primary leisure activity. "Too often, eating seems to be the only thing they enjoy doing together."

The Task
In your new job as a nutritionist at a middle school, you are to design a brochure or Web page for students at the school and their parents. You are to present facts about fast—food meals and the nutritional value of menu items. In the brochure or on the Web page, you need to show readers the nutritional value of fast—food meals typically ordered by teenagers and also offer some wise choices for fast—food meals. Be sure to include the following items in the brochure (Web page):

The Process
To successfully complete this project, you will need to complete the following items.

Guidance
Here are some additional questions and ideas you may want to consider for your project.

  1. What is the food pyramid? How can it help people plan a nutritious diet?
  2. How many calories are burned during different types of physical activity, such as running or skiing?
  3. How can you determine the number of calories that you need in one day to remain healthy?
  4. How could fast—food restaurants help consumers to have a more healthy diet?
  5. Interview the owner or manager of a fast—food restaurant. Find out what types of expenses must be paid when operating a restaurant.

Conclusion
Here are some ideas for concluding your project.

Questions

Lesson 4—5
Julie Ann frequently eats at fast-food restaurants. She used the Internet to find the number of grams of fat in each of these items at one popular restaurant. She determined that her daily allowance of fat grams should not exceed 65.

data table

  1. Suppose she eats a chicken sandwich. Write a fraction in simplest form to show what portion of her daily allowance of fat grams the sandwich represents.
  2. Select three different items in the table such that the total number of fat grams is less than 3/4 of her daily allowance of grams of fat.
  3. Is it possible to find a combination of the foods in the table that would represent exactly 65 grams of fat? If so, list the combination. (Any food can be used more than once.)
Lesson 5—8
A certain fast—food restaurant serves sandwiches with the number of calories shown in the table. In parts a and b, round answers to the nearest whole number, when necessary.

data table

  1. Find the mean, median, and mode of the calories in these six sandwiches.
  2. Suppose the restaurant wants customers to think that their sandwiches are very low in calories. Which measure of central tendency would the restaurant prefer to use in their advertisements? Explain your reasoning.
Lesson 6—7
A particular doctor advises that teenagers should have no more than 2400 milligrams of sodium in their diet per day. The following table shows the sodium content of several items at a popular restaurant. In parts a and b, round answers to the nearest whole percent, when necessary.

data table

  1. What percent of the daily allowance of sodium is represented by one taco salad?
  2. What item contains about 14% of the daily allowance of sodium?
  3. Name three items from this menu such that they contain about 162% of the daily allowance of sodium.

 
 
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