1. After reviewing the strategy ideas respond to your peers.  

2. Discuss a possible obstacle they may face when addressing their nutrition, health, or safety concern.   

3. Each response should be at least 50 words in length.

PEER 1

Childhood Obesity 

The number of overweight children in the United States has increased dramatically in recent years. Approximately 10 percent of 4 and 5-year-old children are overweight, double that of 20 years ago. Overweight is more prevalent in girls than boys and in older preschoolers (ages 4-5) than younger (ages 2-3).

Obesity increases even more as children get older. For ages 6 to 11, at least one child in five is overweight. Over the last two decades, this number has increased by more than 50 percent and the number of obese children has nearly doubled.

Like it or not, everyone doesn’t know what a “healthy” snack is.  So, kids are snacking on things like chocolate pudding cups, gummy fruit snacks (so bad for their teeth!!!), cookies, candy and whatever else people can find in the prepackaged snack aisle. It’s much easier to grab a package of prepacked snacks at the store and be done with it.  But many times, they are loaded with extra sugar, high fructose corn syrup, fat, preservatives, food coloring or just plain have zero nutritional value at all.

Helping Overweight Children

Weight loss is not a good approach for most young children, since their bodies are growing and developing. Overweight children should not be put on a diet unless a physician supervises one for medical reasons. A restrictive diet may not supply the energy and nutrients needed for normal growth and development.

The most important strategies for preventing obesity are healthy eating behaviors, regular physical activity, and reduced sedentary activity (such as watching television and videotapes, and playing computer games). These preventative strategies are part of a healthy lifestyle that should be developed during early childhood. They can be accomplished by following the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Dietary Guidelines provide general diet and lifestyle recommendations for healthy Americans ages 2 years and over (not for younger children and infants). The most recent edition of the Dietary Guidelines can be found on www.ChooseMyPlate.gov (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Following these guidelines can help promote health and reduce risk for chronic diseases.

Promote a Healthy Lifestyle

Parents and caregivers can help prevent childhood obesity by providing healthy meals and snacks, daily physical activity, and nutrition education. Healthy meals and snacks provide nutrition for growing bodies while modeling healthy eating behavior and attitudes. Increased physical activity reduces health risks and helps weight management. Nutrition education helps young children develop an awareness of good nutrition and healthy eating habits for a lifetime.

Children can be encouraged to adopt healthy eating behaviors and be physically active when parents:

· Focus on good health, not a certain weight goal. Teach and model healthy and positive attitudes toward food and physical activity without emphasizing body weight.

· Focus on the family. Do not set overweight children apart. Involve the whole family and work to gradually change the family’s physical activity and eating habits.

· Establish daily meal and snack times, and eating together as frequently as possible. Make a wide variety of healthful foods available based on the Food Guide Pyramid for Young Children. Determine what food is offered and when, and let the child decide whether and how much to eat.

· Plan sensible portions. Use the Food Guide Pyramid for Young Children as a guide.

PEER 2

Meal planning:  A child who is on a gluten-free diet

At school, we have one child who is on a gluten-free diet.  The first step to take is to meet with the parents to determine which strategies we are going to provide for the child to be safe at school and if the parents agree with it.  We would also need to get the details from a medical professional by either getting a letter or some documentation from the child’s physician.  According to Young (2009), “Management plans include written emergency action plans (EAPs), which delineate medical treatment for allergic reactions, as well as general or individualized plans for prevention” (para.5).  First, we will need to design a management plan for the child.  We will need to get it from their physician.  That plan will be posted next to the medical kit inside the classroom.  Then, we will discuss with the parents on how we are going to handle snacks at school.  Our school gets snacks from families.  We give the family a list of what we need and every week we rotate the family.  I will propose that we add to the list a snack that they child would be able to eat with the exact name and brand.  If the other parents do not feel comfortable with this strategy we would ask that the family of the gluten-free child provide their child’s snack and we would store it in a container, carefully labeled solely for their child.  The family provides children’s lunch box so lunch won’t be an issue.  We would also tell the parents that during snack and lunch time a teacher would also sit next to their child and we would provide a little distance from their peers because we do not want the children to share their food or be tempted to try someone else’s food.   Also, we would ask the teacher to talk during circle time about what is an allergy and describe to the children who have allergies and how we can all help the child not have any gluten.  In addition, I would ask the family to bring a couple of cupcakes to store in the freezer because when we have a birthday celebration their child can have their gluten-free cupcakes.  I would tell the parents that we will mention to all the families that their child has a gluten allergy because we feel it is very important that everyone is aware of them.  In the classroom, we will post the children’s name and picture and write a description of what allergy they have near the kitchen sink.  We will also use a special area that has containers for children with food allergies where we can store their food.  We want all our staff to be aware of the children’s allergy including our substitute teachers.  It is very important to communicate with the whole school about allergy and prevent any accidents to happen by informing people about them.

RESPONDING TO THE TEACHER

Those are good strategies to use, such as informing parents by discussing the importance of immunization and giving them documentation to read. One possible obstacle that might occur would be that they do not get their child’s immunization done even after you talk to them. 

1. How would you handle the situation?