Let’s Reduce Child Obesity!

Mary Kadaa

P.S. 336, Pre-K Class

INTRODUCTION:

In the United States of America, child obesity is continuously on the rise. Children of all ages are at risk for developing several health problems due to child obesity. Studies show that children who are obese in early childhood will continue to become obese adults if they don't take care of the problem early on.

The prevalence of obesity was 19.7% and affected about 14.7 million children and adolescents. That is a lot of people!

For children ages:

● 2- to 5-year-olds, obesity rates was 12.7%

● 6- to 11-year-olds, 20.7%

● 12- to 19-year-olds, 22.2%

Childhood obesity is also more common among certain populations:

● 26.2% among Hispanic children,

● 24.8% among non-Hispanic Black children,

● 16.6% among non-Hispanic White children, and

● 9.0% among non-Hispanic Asian children.

Obesity-related conditions include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, breathing problems such as asthma and sleep apnea, and joint problems.

We want to be here

Click on the picture below to view how children are affected by childhood obesity.

TASK

Your task is to write and illustrate one-way children can prevent childhood obesity by improving eating habits. At the end of your research, you should be able to sort between healthy and unhealthy foods and write one sentence and illustrate a way to improve eating habits.

PROCESS

1. Define the Problem

You and your peers will determine the problem by looking at pictures of children who are obese and children who are not obese. You will then define what the problem is.

2. Gather the Evidence

You will gather evidence of unhealthy eating by sorting between pictures of healthy vs unhealthy foods.

3. Identify the Causes

What is causing obesity? You will watch this video to determine what the cause is.

Click on the image to watch the link.

4. Evaluate an Existing Policy

What are the policies on preventing obesity? You will work in groups to discuss these 3 policies with a teacher.

Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education program
Safe Routes to School funding.

5. Develop Solutions

Your group is going to discover one way to prevent childhood obesity by determining ways to make healthier food options. You will do by completing the steps found below.

6. Select the Best Solution (Feasibility vs. Effectiveness)

You will then work together to determine if your food choices will help prevent childhood obesity.

Steps:

● You and your peers will determine the problem by looking at pictures of children who are obese and children who are not obese. You will then define what the problem is.

● Work with a partner. You will look at pictures of healthy and not healthy eating foods and sort what you want to use.

● You will then cut out those pictures.

● Corroborate that the information gathered is accurate.

● Develop a draft. Make sure to use inventive spelling to write your sentence. Ask for help if needed.

● When finished with your sentence, use the resource below (sentences to use) to write about your findings.

● Illustrate what you wrote about.

● Use only the resources provided, do not venture out to do additional research.

Resources:

Sentences to use

Healthy food vs not healthy foods

EVALUATION

Task	4	3	2	1
Group Work Collaboration	Excellent evidence of collaboration amongst all team members	Good evidence of collaboration amongst all team members	Some collaboration evident amongst team members	There was little to no collaboration amongst the team members
Knowledge of Content: Sorting healthy vs unhealthy foods	Excellent understanding of the difference between the two and sorts everything correctly.	Has a good understanding and sorts almost all correctly.	Has some understanding and knowledge of the difference between the two and sorts some correctly.	Has limited to no understanding of the content and was not able to sort the content.
Written/ illustration presentation	Excellent evidence of writing and illustrating skills. Writes and illustrates independently through inventive spelling.	Good evidence of writing and illustrating. Writes and illustrates with some assistance but mostly independently.	Some evidence of writing and illustrating with assistance.	There was little to no writing and illustrating skills.

CONCLUSION

In this unit, you became experts on ways to make healthy eating choices to prevent childhood obesity. You sorted healthy foods from unhealthy foods and also wrote about and illustrated one way to eat healthy. Extend your thinking to find something else we can do to prevent childhood obesity. Great job friends!

STANDARDS:

Next generation Pre-K Ela standards

PKR9: Make connections between self, text, and the world.

PKW1: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, oral expression, and/or emergent writing to state an opinion about a familiar topic in child centered, authentic, play-based learning.

PKW6: Develop questions and participate in shared research and exploration to answer questions and to build and share knowledge.

PKSL1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse peers and adults in small and large groups and during play.

Next generation Mathematics Pre-K standards:

NY-PK.MD.1 Identify measurable attributes of objects, such as length or weight, and describe them using appropriate vocabulary.

NY-PK.MD.2 Sort objects and shapes into categories; count the objects in each category.