Title – Do Something about… Eating Healthy

Day 9: Fitting in Fitness

By – Do Something, Inc. / www.dosomething.org

Primary Subject – Health / Physical Education

Secondary Subjects – Other

Grade Level – 9-12

Do Something about…

Eating Healthy

10-Day Unit

The following lesson is the ninth lesson of a 10-day

Eating Healthy Unit from Do Something, Inc.

Other lessons in this unit are as follows:

Day 1: Green Scene Students learn the benefits of green vegetables and the number of recommended servings

Day 2: Vital Vitamins Students learn about different types of vitamins and how they function in the body

Day 3: Nutritious Choices Students examine their eating habits and learn about a balanced diet

Day 4: International Food Day Students learn the differences in people’s diets from around the world

Day 5: Super-size Me Students learn about America’s growing obesity and its relationship to portion size

Day 6: Got Greens? Students learn ways foods are marketed towards youth in order to start their own green campaign

Day 7: Getting the Skinny on Obesity Students learn about the New Food Pyramid and how to evaluate their Body Mass Index

Day 8: Action Plan Students evaluate their own activity levels and plan ways to add more movement into their lives

Day 9: Fitting in Fitness (See the lesson below) Students evaluate how they spend their time and how to include physical activity into their day

Day 10: Green Day Students plant a garden and/or fix up a community space for physical activity

More student resources for this cause are at:


www.dosomething.org/causes/healthy_eating

Day 9: Fitting in Fitness

Goal:

Students will evaluate the way they spend their time and how they can include physical activity as part of their day.

Steps:

1. 
   Warm-up:
   
   Have each student write how they spent their time yesterday from the moment they woke up to the moment that they went to sleep.
   
   Explain to students that we want to create awareness about:
   • How we currently spend our time.
     
   • How we want to spend our time.
     
   • How we can set goals to try and spend our time more productively.
2. Have students keep a time diary to help them see how they spend their time during the course of a typical day.
3. Tell students to use graph paper and starting at the top of the page, write down the hours in a 24-hour day, starting at 5 a.m., in one-hour intervals.
4. Have students create a second graph for how they spend time on a non-school day. Have students share with another classmate.
5. After they have finished processing, have each student write down all of the things that they need to do in the next few days, weeks, and months. Have them create an "ideal" chart of how they would like to spend their days in order to accomplish these goals.
6. Explain to students that you will collect these graphs and journals and pass them out later in the year so that they can revisit their goals and evaluate whether or not they have kept their commitment to making it happen.
7. 
   Reflect:
   
   Why doesn’t there seem to be enough time in a day to do the things you want to do? What are common distractions that get in the way? What are some of the things they would have to shift to make fitness a priority? Could fitness become part of other tasks? You may want to encourage a few athletes in the class to speak about their physical activity and how they motivate themselves to exercise.

Other Activities:

1. Have students research various types of fitness programs to see which fits their fitness goals. Have them explain why they have chosen a particular fitness plan. How often they are going to engage in this activity? Where they can do this exercise? Will they need to pay money? If so, are there low cost exercise options (local or school gyms).
2. Discuss goal setting with students and the idea of meaningful cardio exercise. Review the idea of target heart rate. "Target heart rate zone (training zone) is the range between 60% and 80% of your maximum heart rate. Working within this zone gives you the maximum health and fat-burning benefits from your cardiovascular activity". Students can calculate their target heart rate at
   

   http://www.healthchecksystems.com/heart.asp

   
   .

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