School Programs >> Active Kids Challenge >> Teaching Resource - Week 2

Active Kids Challenge

Teaching Resource - Active Travel with Fit Habitz Week 2

FREE Exclusive Offers for Participating Schools    Teaching Resources: Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5

---

Learning

What Fuels My Body?

Nutrition can make a difference to how you perform at physical activity, how you feel in general and your recovery after being active. Eating a well balanced diet will help you to enjoy being active and allows you to have sustained energy for the rest of the day.

There are six essential nutrients the body derives from food:

• protein
• carbohydrate
• fat
• minerals
• vitamins
• water

Often fibre is added to this list. Imagine your body working like a car, then protein, carbohydrate and fat provide the fuel (energy) required to keep the car running smoothly.

• Carbohydrate is the body's preferred fuel source. Carbohydrate circulates around the blood stream as glucose to maintain energy levels and travels to the brain to ensure mental alertness.
• Fat is a concentrated source of energy (supplying double the amount of energy of carbohydrate) and is therefore essential for growing bodies with small stomachs. Fat provides padding to protect essential organs such as the heart and kidneys; insulates the body from the cold; and makes up the structure of cell membranes and hormones. The type of fat and the amount of fat children eat is particularly important for good health.
• Protein provides the same amount of energy as carbohydrate, but the body prefers to use it to form the structure of important compounds such as body cells, muscle tissue, skin, hair, antibodies, enzymes and genes. Protein in particularly important during periods of growth.

Children need a balanced combination of the energy providing nutrients to support growth.

Carbohydrate is found in breads, grains, cereal products, fruit, starchy vegetables, legumes, milk and yogurt.	Fat is best supplied by dairy products, nuts, nut pastes, seeds, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated cooking oils and spreads, avocado.	Protein is supplied mainly by meat, chicken, fish, eggs, legumes, nuts and dairy products, while breads and cereals provide small amounts.
Photograph "Homemade Wheat Bread" by Emily Carlin (Flickr) under under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.	Photograph "STOP & SHOP Deluxe Mixed Nuts" by s58y (Flickr) under under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.	Photograph "United We Stand" by Francesco Pappalardo (Flickr) under under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Fit Tips

• Avoid classifying foods as either 'good' or 'bad' – try 'everyday' foods or 'sometimes' foods. Labeling foods in a negative way may set up cravings and feeling of guilt when these foods are eaten.
• Snacks are just as important as meals in ensuring adequate energy and nutrient intake. Snacks should be planned so that a variety of healthy choices are offered.
• Encourage children to try different foods by putting them in control of some of their food choices. Get them involved in shopping and cooking. If children can understand why it's good to have lots of different foods, they are more likely to try.
• Very athletic children require additional energy and carbohydrates to meet growth demands and satisfy fuel requirements to optimise athletic performance.

Fit Corner - Class Activity

Canteen menu check up…Obtain a copy of your schools canteen menu. Can you list the different menu options into the following categories;

• Carbohydrate
• Protein
• Fat

Fit Qs

• Would you have more energy throughout the day if you ate 3 big meals or 6-8 smaller meals a day? Can you explain why?
• Lunchbox Makeover - What are some different types of food that you could bring to school to keep your body fuelled ready for action?
• Can you come up with some fun names for the different foods available on your canteen menu to promote food for fuel? i.e. Chicken salad sandwiches might be now called Energy Blasters!