Advocating School-Wide Awareness
In order to encourage a positive, healthy lifestyle schools need to educate students on what exactly this means. By doing so, schools need to be willing to openly talk about eating disorders and what they are. In individual classrooms, teachers can promote this healthy lifestyle with their students by implementing a curriculum structured to do so. In order to effectively accomplish this goal, it is important that the curriculum actively involves students, family members, teachers, and school board members. In addition to this curriculum, there are many other opportunities to advocate awareness for eating disorders. For example, place signs around the school, hold an all school assembly, or send out a letter to parents keeping them both informed and educated about the issue. In the words of Henry Ford, "Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success."
Cognitive Ability
- Eating disorders can intensely affect a child's ability to learn.
- A child's cognitive function can be affected by poor nutrition and mental disorders that coexist with an eating disorder.
- Under-nutrition can:
-Have a negative impact on student behavior and their school performance
-Make students feel short-tempered, which decreases the ability to concentrate, focus, listen, and process information.
-Cause nausea, headache, and makes feel exhausted and have a lack of energy.
-Make students with disordered eating behaviors less able to perform tasks as well as their sufficiently nourished peers.
-Lead to deficiencies in specific nutrients, such as iron, which has an immediate effect on students' memory and concentration.
-Make students less active and more uninterested and lethargic.
-Make students engage in fewer social interactions.
-Weaken the immune system and make students more vulnerable to illnesses.
-Increase absence because of the above impairments.
- An Obsession and concern with food will often dominate the life of a student with an eating disorder.
Eating Disorders Lesson Plan
Grade Level
-Middle school
Objectives
-To educate students about healthy versus unhealthy lifestyles
-To make students aware of the impact media has on our lives
-To promote to have a healthy lifestyle themselves
-To encourage students to think above and beyond their preconceived knowledge
Materials
-Students
-Paper
-Pencils
-Magazines, Newspapers
-Computer (for teacher's powerpoint presentation)
Preparation
-The teacher should create a powerpoint presentation with information about different eating disorders. This powerpoint will include basic information on various types of eating disorders as well as the media's role in this issue. Gather old magazines and newspapers so that students will have the materials necessary to participate in the activity.
Activity
-Students will start by completing a KWL chart individually. This includes students' current knowledge, what they want to learn, and then what they have learned after the activity has been completed.
-The teacher will then present the powerpoint on eating disorders to give the students background information about what they should be looking for during the main activity.
-Students will break up into groups with various magazines and newspapers to find examples of how the media has a negative impact on our lifestyles, from anorexia to obesity to overall body image.
-Once students have gathered pictures, articles, or other information they will be responsible for sharing their findings with the rest of the class.
-To wrap up the activity the teacher will encourage students to initiate conversation with a parent or adult about maintaining a healthy lifestlye!
Conclusion
-Make sure to have students finish filling out their KWL chart to reflect on what they Learned from the activity.
-Middle school
Objectives
-To educate students about healthy versus unhealthy lifestyles
-To make students aware of the impact media has on our lives
-To promote to have a healthy lifestyle themselves
-To encourage students to think above and beyond their preconceived knowledge
Materials
-Students
-Paper
-Pencils
-Magazines, Newspapers
-Computer (for teacher's powerpoint presentation)
Preparation
-The teacher should create a powerpoint presentation with information about different eating disorders. This powerpoint will include basic information on various types of eating disorders as well as the media's role in this issue. Gather old magazines and newspapers so that students will have the materials necessary to participate in the activity.
Activity
-Students will start by completing a KWL chart individually. This includes students' current knowledge, what they want to learn, and then what they have learned after the activity has been completed.
-The teacher will then present the powerpoint on eating disorders to give the students background information about what they should be looking for during the main activity.
-Students will break up into groups with various magazines and newspapers to find examples of how the media has a negative impact on our lifestyles, from anorexia to obesity to overall body image.
-Once students have gathered pictures, articles, or other information they will be responsible for sharing their findings with the rest of the class.
-To wrap up the activity the teacher will encourage students to initiate conversation with a parent or adult about maintaining a healthy lifestlye!
Conclusion
-Make sure to have students finish filling out their KWL chart to reflect on what they Learned from the activity.