Many Namibians have come to understand the word Diet to mean the kind of foods that people eat for slimming or losing weight, but the word really means all the foods and beverages (drinks/liquids) any person consumes, even those who are not slimming. So a good diet means a Healthy Eating Plan and healthy and balanced nutrition means eating the right type of foods in the right quantities to keep healthy, keep fit, and enjoy life.
For our nutritional well-being we need to have a variety of nutritious, safe and acceptable foods that meet the dietary needs of all members of the household every day throughout the year.
This section of your Handbook includes 8 activities that will help your group members to understand the meaning and importance of having a healthy diet and a Healthy Eating Plan.
Notes
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Project skill: |
Understanding the results of both healthy and unhealthy eating habits. |
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Life skill: |
Acquiring Knowledge |
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Copies of the game The Ups and Downs of Nutrition, dice
and players' markers or pieces (seeds, stones, etc.) for playing the
game. |
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Preparation: |
Check to make sure that you have all the dices and enough seeds or stones to use as marker pieces ready for playing the games. |
Put up the Food Guide for Namibia poster where everyone can see it.
Introduction
1. Tell your Youth Club members that they will be playing a game called The Ups and Downs of Nutrition in order to understand healthy and unhealthy eating habits and what the results are of these habits.
Experience
2. Read aloud from How the Game Works.
First read about the purpose of the game and show your group members the Food Guide poster. Tell the members that the game is to help them to better understand the Healthy Eating messages of the poster.
3. Read out the steps or rules for playing the game and show everyone each step as you read about it.
Make sure that everyone understands the game before they start playing.
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You might want to display the game board while you or a group member demonstrates each step. If the group is not too big, you could place the game board on the ground or floor so that everyone can see you, or someone else demonstrate the steps. |
4. Ask your members to form groups of 2 to 6 people.
The game may be played by up to 6 people, but this may make it a bit crowded, so if you have enough games, it would be better to have no more than 4 players per group.
Process
5. Give each group a game board, a dice and marker pieces for each person. Tell the groups that they may begin playing the game.
6. Move among the groups and help those who may have problems with how to play the game.
7. After all the groups have finished the game (or when you feel it is time to end the playing), ask everyone to come together as a large group.
Apply
8. Ask the following questions to summarise the nutrition messages in the game:
What did you learn from this game?
What Healthy Eating habits did you learn from this game?
What did you learn about the results of unhealthy eating habits?
Does playing the game help you to remember or better understand the Guideline messages on the Food Guide poster?
What nutrition messages did you not understand?
Who can explain these to help
the other group member/s to understand?
If it will help, use the Basic
Facts about Nutrients Handout to help with this.
How can you use what you have learned from this game?
Would you like to play this game again sometime?
How can you use what you have learned from this game to help friends, family or community members to learn about Healthy Eating?
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Nutrition messages in the Ups and Downs of Nutrition game 1. Eating a balanced diet gives a lot of healthy energy. |
How to Play The Ups And Downs Game
This is a
simple and easy game to play. It may be played by 2 to 6 players.
Why should we play this game?
This game is to help players understand the results of both healthy and unhealthy eating habits. It will help us to learn how to make good and wise choices about food.
Directions for Playing the Game
1. Setting Up the Game
Each player chooses a seed, stone, etc as their marker piece.
Place the game board so that all the players can easily move their stones from square to square.
Look at the game board. The squares are numbered from 1 to 100. When a player throws the dice, his or her marker (stones or seeds, etc) should move across the board following the numbers.
The game numbers start at square number 1, which is in the bottom left corner of the board. Arrows on the board will help to show the way to the next row of numbers to be followed.
When a player's marker gets onto a square with a ladder, this is a good eating habit. This means that the player can move his or her marker up to the top of the ladder, which helps them to have a better chance of being a winner!
When a player's marker gets onto a square with a slide, this is an unhealthy eating habit. This means that the player must move his or her marker down the slide and will slow down the player's chances of being a winner.
2. Playing the Game
Before starting the game, players' markers should NOT be on the board.
To find out which player will start the game, each player takes a turn to throw the dice. The player who gets the highest number on the dice gets to start the game.
This starting player should throw the dice again and then move his or her marker, counting the number of squares according to the number shown on the dice. Counting should start from square number 1. For example, if the player's dice shows 5, the marker should move to square number 5 on the board.
When a player has moved their marker by counting the squares, that person's turn is over until all the players in their group have thrown their dice and moved their markers. More than one marker may be on the same square at the same time.
When a player's marker ends its move on a picture square at the bottom of a ladder, that marker must climb up to the picture square at the top of the ladder. For example, if a player's move ends on square number 8, the player should move up to square number 31. Notice that the pictures on these two squares are related.
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The player should say out loud the picture message at the bottom of the ladder and also the picture message at the top of the ladder. |
When a player's marker ends its move on a picture square at the top of a slide, that marker must move down to the picture square at the bottom of the slide. For example, if a player's move ends on square number 46, it must move down the slide to square number 25. Again, the pictures are related.
The player should say out loud the picture message at the top of the slide and also the picture message at the bottom of the slide.
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It is important that players should read out these messages on the squares so that everyone can understand the good results of Healthy Eating habits OR the poor results of unhealthy eating habits. When a player has difficulty reading these messages, other players may read it for them. |
A player's turn is over when they have finished moving their marker by:
Moving up a ladder or down a slide
Counting out the squares.
3. Winning the Game
The first player to reach square number 100 wins the game. A player can get there in 2 ways:
· By getting the right count of squares to end on 100.
If the count would take a player past number 100, he or she should not move, but try again in their next turn until the dice shows the right number.
· When a player's move ends on square number 80.
By eating a balanced meal which contains foods from all 4 Food Groups, the player can move his or her marker up to square number 100 and become a winner!
This activity will take 2 group meetings to complete.
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Project skills: |
Record (write down) all the foods and liquids (beverages)
consumed over a three-day period of time. |
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Life skills: |
Managing resources. |
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The Food Guide for Namibia poster. Members' Basic
Facts about Nutrition Handouts from Activity 1.4. |
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Preparation: |
Put up the Food Guide for Namibia Poster where everyone can see it clearly. |
Ask group members to bring the "Basic Facts" Handouts from Activity 4, and paper and pencils for working.
Make a Workpad poster chart that looks like this:
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Day |
Cereals |
Fruits & |
Meat, beans, |
Fats, oils & |
Liquids |
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Introduction
1. Begin by explaining to everyone that in this activity they will keep a record of all the foods and liquids (beverages) that they eat and drink over 3 days. Then they will look at each 3-Day Food List to find ways in which it does and does not match the guidelines on the Food Guide poster and decide how to improve their eating habits.
Experience
2. Explain to your group members that you would like them to make a list of all the foods and liquids they eat and drink over the next three days.
3. Encourage everyone to keep their lists as completely as possible. Explain that this activity is for learning purposes, and no one else will look at their food list or judge them on what they are eating and drinking.
4. Ask everyone to bring their Food Lists to the next group meeting.
Process
5. At the next group meeting, display the Food Guide poster for the group.
6. Review the following "Food & Nutrition Guidelines" on the Food Guide poster with the group members:
Eat a variety of Foods
Eat vegetables and fruit every day
Eat more fish
Use whole grain products
Use only iodised salt, but use less salt
Eat at least three meals a day
Avoid drinking alcohol
7. Remind everyone that we should have foods from the 4 Food Groups every day. Let the group members refer to the picture on the Food Guide Poster and ask them to describe these Food Groups and the types of food they contain:
One group contains Cereals such as brown bread, mahangu, sorghum, rice, noodles and cereal.
The second group contains fruits and vegetables.
The third group is made up of meat, fish, eggs, milk, beans, nuts, mopane worms and similar foods.
The fourth group is made up of sugar and fats such as oil, butter, and margarine. It is good to encourage them to think of other foods that belong in each group.
8. Put up your Workpad poster chart for this activity to help them use it as a guide for the following step.
9. Ask everyone to look at their 3-Day Food Lists to find out how well their eating habits match the Food Guide. The following steps might be helpful in guiding them through this:
Ask the group members to look at their list of foods and beverages for Day 1.
Ask them to count up the number of foods and drinks (beverages) they had that day from each of the four food groups. If they had the same food or liquid more than once during the day, tell them to count it each time as foods from a particular Food Group.
Suggest that they draw a chart on their paper something like the one on your Workpad poster, but with the counted food marked in.
A completed chart may look something like this:
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Day |
Cereals |
Fruits & |
Meat, beans, |
Fats, oils & |
Liquids |
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Apply
10. Let your group members look at your Workpad chart and think about the following questions:
Did you have at least one food from each group each day?
Did you have at least 3 portions or servings from the whole grain group each day (for example, mahangu, bread, rice, pasta, cereal)? Point out that this food group should supply the largest part of the diet, so a person should eat more from this group than from the others.
Did you have at least two fruits each day?
Did you have at least three vegetables each day?
Did you have portions or servings of food from the beans, meat, nuts and milk (protein) group each day?
Did you have small amounts of sugar and fats each day? Explain that, while a person can go without sugar, if he or she did not have fats or oils, that person would soon have problems.
Based on what you learned from this, how could you improve your diet so that it would include a bigger variety of foods, especially from the grains group and the fruits and vegetables group?
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Some members might want to talk about what they ate and what they did not eat and may be willing to share this information for group discussion. However, don't insist that everyone shows their numbers to the whole group because some of them might be embarrassed by not having a balanced diet, especially if money for food is short in the family. |
11. Ask the group to think about and discuss the following questions:
Did you eat foods rich in Vitamin A, niacin, iodine, and iron every day?
If you did not have each of these nutrients each day, can you think of what you could add to your diet so that you would get these nutrients each day?
12. Ask each person to decide on three goals they have for improving their diets or Eating Plans in the next few weeks.
Ask if anyone would like to talk about his or her goals, but don't insist on this, as they might want to have more time to decide on what goals are most important and realistic for them.
13. Explain that in Activity 2.4 you will ask the group members how well they did in achieving their goals for a healthier diet. In this activity, they will also be using their 3-Day Food Lists and charts again, so they should keep these lists and any new Food Lists they wish to make at home.
Notes
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Project skill: |
Using knowledge of nutrition to plan balanced meals |
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Life skills: |
Solving problems |
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Food Guide Poster |
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Preparation: |
Ask your group members to bring paper and pens or pencils for this activity. |
Using your Workpad and a pencil, turn the Pad sideways and draw the following table:
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Meal |
Food |
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1. Sorghum or Samp and dried beans, with Spinach or Rape, and butter, oil, cream or cooked fat |
4 |
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2. Mealiepap and Soya ""meat"", e.g. Imana or Toppers, cooked with Carrot and cabbage. |
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3. Bread (including mahangu bread) and meat, fish or chicken |
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4. Mahangu, yoghurt or cultured milk, little sugar or honey |
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5. Noodles, cheese and Spinach |
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6. Rice, fish (fresh tinned or dried) and fried onion leaves |
4 |
When you have finished drafting this table in pencil so that all the information fits neatly, go over it with your marker and then rub out all the pencil, so that your table is now neat and will be seen clearly.
Keep this Poster so that you can use it again for other times when you do this Activity with other Youth Groups.
Introduction
1. Explain to everyone that in this activity they will be using knowledge of nutrition learned in previous activities to plan for Healthy Eating and balanced meals.
Experience
2. Display the Food Guide poster for easy reference by your participants.
3. Ask someone in the group to use what they have learned in previous activities to explain to everyone how good nutrition works.
Expected explanation:
Good nutrition combines different foods from the Food Groups in our meals so that the body gets all the right nutrients it needs in order to function properly.
Encourage input from other group members to help if the person giving the explanation gets stuck or has difficulty.
4. Put up your Workpad poster to display your table of meals, but cover up the column showing the Food Groups.
5. Now work down the list, discussing each meal and asking the group to name how many food Groups each one contains.
6. When you have worked through the list, uncover the Food Groups column so that everyone can see if they were right about the number of Food Groups in each meal.
7. Remind everyone that variety is very important to make sure that a person gets enough of the right nutrients. Point out that even though a meal may contain all 4 Food Groups, there may be something which may be added to the meal to make sure that it contains more nutrients.
8. Work through the list of meals on your Table again, this time asking for ideas for what may be added to increase the variety or the number of food groups in each meal.
Some examples are:
1 Sorghum or Samp and dry beans, with Spinach or Rape, and butter, oil, cream or cooked fat.
· Could include a fruit or fruit juice.
2 Mealiepap and Soya "meat", e.g. Imana or Toppers, cooked with Carrot and cabbage.
· Some butter or fat may be added. Perhaps also a fruit?
3 Bread (including mahangu bread) and meat, fish or chicken
· Add cooked or raw vegetables (salad). Spinach, tomato, lettuce, etc.
4 Mahangu, yoghurt or cultured milk, little sugar or honey
· Add apple, pear, banana or guava
5 Noodles, cheese and Spinach
· Add a tomato
6 Rice, fish (fresh tinned or dried) and fried onion leaves
· Serve with a cup of Rooibos tea.
9. The importance of snacks
Explain that, while it is important that a meal is as balanced as possible, it is not always possible to have ALL Food Groups, or enough nutrients, in one single meal. Therefore it is more realistic to devise a Healthy Eating Plan or diet which tries to supply these important nutrients over 1 day.
Snacks are a good way of helping with this, especially for children, the elderly, those who work in the fields or bush for long hours, or when it is too hot to eat one big meal, etc. Snacks are small meals which, although not complete in themselves, can help to add to the daily nutrients needed by the body as well as prevent hunger.
Information for this Activity adapted from "Facts about HIV/AIDS" and "Caring for Someone with AIDS" © M. Futter
10. Ask your group members to think of some ideas for good snacks (especially if they have favourites that they enjoy at home!). Some ideas are:
Yoghurt or cultured milk with fruit or sprinkled with chopped seeds or nuts (pumpkin seeds, !nara pips, etc);
Biltong or dried fish;
Nuts or seeds on their own;
Fruit (embe, jakkalsbessie/omwandi, paw paw, etc)
Bread with peanut butter or marmite;
A raw carrot;
A glass of milk or yoghurt;
Bread soaked in milk or soup.
Wild sedge bulbs(omahenge, intsikane, uintjies)
Process
11. Making a Healthy Eating Plan
Divide everyone into small working groups of 3 or 4 people. Point out the Guidelines on the Food Guide poster.
12. Explain that each group should use the these Guidelines as reference to make a Healthy Eating Plan for 3 days, which consists of 3 meals with snacks in between. When making these plans, they should also be able to explain how many Food Groups they have in the Healthy Eating Plan for each day.
Point out that this part of the activity is to get creative ideas for planning a diet with good, balanced meals without spending lots of money. Everyone should understand that we need to get over the idea of "poor man's food" or that good nutrition is only for rich people. So the challenge for all the groups is that their Eating Plans should contain traditional or veld foods or others which are easily available or cheap to buy.
Encourage everyone to include their own favourite dishes from home so that these ideas may be shared with everybody later.
13. Give all your groups about 10 minutes to discuss and draw up their or Healthy Eating Plans (also known as menus).
14. Have each group present their Healthy Eating Plan to the other groups by reading out what they have chosen for meals and snacks for each day, as well as the Food Groups which they contain.
Apply
15. Have everyone come together to form one large group again.
16. Review the Activity by leading a discussion on what they have learned. Encourage this discussion by asking questions, which may include the following:
What have you learned from this activity about planning balanced meals and making Healthy Eating Plans?
How can making and using a Healthy Eating Plan help and encourage people to have better eating habits?
How can planning help people to have more affordable nutrition?
What problems did you have during this activity?
How can these problems be solved?
How could we benefit from learning about and trying some of the traditional foods eaten by people of other Namibian cultures?
How do you think Namibian nutritional health could be improved by trying different traditional foods?
Try to find out if any participants still have problems understanding how Food Groups and nutrients are important, and help them to understand the information. Other participants may also help with this.
17. Ask your group members to keep the Eating Plans or menus that they have worked on in this activity. Explain that these will be needed for the next activity.
A balanced meal is one which contains food from all the
Food Groups.
A Healthy Eating Plan is a way of making sure to have a
variety of foods from all the Food Groups during the course of one
day.
Information for this activity was adapted from Facts about HIV and AIDS, Caring for Someone with AIDS and How to Make a Kitchen Garden, © M. Futter
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Project skill: |
Using knowledge of nutrition to make a Healthy Eating Plan. |
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Life skills: |
Managing resources |
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Food Guide for Namibia Poster |
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Preparation: |
Ask your group members to bring paper and pens or pencils for this activity. |
Ask everyone to bring their 3-Day Food Lists from Activity 2.2 and their Healthy Eating Plans and menus from Activity 2.3
Using your Workpad, pencil and marker, turn the Pad sideways and draw the following chart:
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Day 1. |
Day 2. |
Day 3. |
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Breakfast |
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Snack |
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Lunch |
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Snack |
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Dinner |
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Drinks |
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Introduction
1. Explain to your group members that in this activity they will be using their food lists and knowledge of nutrition that they learned in the previous 2 activities to make new Healthy Eating Plans, which build in foods they normally eat or which are locally available.
Experience
2. Ask everyone to form the same small groups of 3 or 4 people that worked together on Eating Plans or menus in the previous activity.
3. Explain that each group should take out the 3-Day Food Lists and Eating Plans that were made before, and point out that:
Each small group should make 1 Healthy Eating Plan using all the meals and foods from the 3-day Food Lists of the members in their group.
That the new Healthy Eating Plans should also include snacks.
Process
4. Put up the Food Guide Poster and your Workpad chart.
5. Explain that:
Group members may use the Food Guide Posters as reference when making their Healthy Eating plans.
Each group's Healthy Eating Plan should be drawn out like your Workpad example, with the foods for each day written into the Plan.
6. Give all the groups about 30 minutes to work on their Healthy Eating Plans. During this time, move among the groups and offer help and guidance.
Apply
7. When the groups have finished making their Healthy Eating Plans, let each group have a turn to read this out and explain it to everybody else.
Encourage comment, discussion, suggestions and input from all the Youth Club members at the end of each presentation.
A finished Healthy Eating Plan, or 3-day Menu, may look something like this:
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Day 2. |
Day 3. |
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Breakfast |
Jungle oats with milk and sugar |
Bread, egg and tea |
Palm fruit and pumpkin |
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Snack |
Banana or pawpaw |
Guava |
Embe |
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Lunch |
Beans with sorghum and spinach |
Porridge with wild spinach |
Rice and meat |
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Snack |
Oshikundu |
Marula nuts with omaere/yoghurt |
Omaere |
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Dinner |
Mieliemeel with fish and tomato |
Porridge with mopani worms and cabbage |
Sorghum with chicken, with carrots and onion |
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Drinks |
Milk, water |
Fruit juice |
Tea |
8. End the activity by encouraging a discussion. Guide the discussion by asking questions such as:
Do you think making a Healthy Eating Plan is a good way to develop healthy eating habits? Why?
How do you think it would help family and community members to learn how to good nutrition which contains a variety of foods from all 4 Food Groups?
What are good ideas for ways in which you could help your community to learn about the importance of Nutrition and of Healthy Eating Plans?
Information for this Activity adapted from "Facts about HIV/AIDS" and "Caring for Someone with AIDS" © M. Futter
This activity can be done over several weeks, including school holidays.
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Project skill: |
Understanding of the kinds of foods which are easily available and affordable within the community. |
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Life skills: |
Acquiring knowledge. |
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Food Guide Poster |
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Preparation: |
Ask your group members to bring paper and pens or pencils for this activity. |
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Homegrown |
Veld |
Bought |
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Using your Workpad and marker, make a poster like the one on the right:
Introduction
1. Explain that the reason for this Survey activity is to get a better understanding of the kinds of foods which are available within the community.
In other words, now that Youth Club members have learned about good nutrition, is it possible to put this knowledge into practice? Are there enough of the right kinds of locally available foods so that group members and people in the community can have a balanced diet, with a variety of foods from all 4 Food Groups?
Experience
2. Explain that the foods they should list in this Survey should be home-grown food (vegetables, fruit, meat, milk, etc), veld or bush food (fish, ombidi, mopane worms, embe, uintjies, etc) or foods which can be bought cheaply in shops, dried beans, lentils, onions, pilchards, etc.)
3. Let everybody form working teams or pairs.
When doing this, let the members chose who they want to work with, or to put groups/pairs together according to those who live close to each other or are even from the same family, so that it is easier for them to work together.
4. Put up your Workpad Poster to show how the working teams or pairs could list these foods by making 3 columns in order write the available foods under each heading.
5. Point out that:
A lot of information can be got by thinking about what they eat in their own homes or from getting ideas from family.
The list of Bought foods can be made by going to local shops and checking prices and then listing these items in the column.
Friends and family members are good sources of information on foods that are available in different seasons of the year, so discussion is important for remembering and listing all the foods.
"Affordable" does not just mean food that is cheap to buy, but also means those foods which do not cost money, such as veld food or homegrown food (fruit, vegetables, meat, etc). In other words, foods that save people money.
"Affordable nutrition" means being able to get foods that have the right quality. That is, foods which are nutrient rich, to make sure that people can have a balanced diet if they have a Healthy Eating Plan.
Process
6. Set a date for when the Survey should be finished and plan the meeting when all the teams will present their Surveys.
7. Let everyone have a discussion and share ideas about how they may go about doing their Surveys. This is also a good chance for them to talk about any problems they may have about doing their surveys and get advice from other group members about how to solve them.
Apply
8. When the groups next meet, let each group or team present their Survey to the rest of the Youth Club members.
9. Explain that the purpose of doing a Survey is not just to collect data or information for an empty reason, but that a Survey is done so that we can plan to take positive action based on the information which has been collected.
10. Let all the teams or groups come together to form 1 large group and ask them to discuss and give their opinions on the following:
Based on what you learned by doing your Surveys, do you think there are positive ways for people to improve their nutrition according to the Guidelines on the Food Guide Poster? Explain.
Do you think families could improve nutritional quality by having better knowledge? Explain.
Many Namibian families are struggling and have little or no money. What can be done to help them to improve their nutrition in:
(a) rural communities where they could perhaps grow things but can't always get to shops or to buy from them
(b) urban areas where it is not easy to get veld foods and there is little or no money to spend in shops?
11. Encourage discussion about finding positive solutions for:
Poor nutrition caused by lack of knowledge about Healthy Eating Plans and balanced meals.
Poor nutrition resulting from beliefs that expensive food is better than cheap, local food.
What we can do as Youth Club members and as a society to make sure people do not go hungry and to overcome malnourishment in Namibia.
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Project skill: |
Using knowledge of nutrition to convince others to change their eating habits. |
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Life skills: |
Communicating. |
Introduction
1. Explain to your group members that this activity will involve them in Role Playing situations where one person will use his or her knowledge of nutrition to convince another person with unhealthy eating habits to change.
Experience
2. Explain that each Role Play will last only about 5 minutes. After each Role Play, the presenters will be asked questions and then everyone in the group will be asked to discuss the situation that was just acted out.
3. Ask for three volunteers to take part in the first Role Play. Give each person one of the following roles:
An 8-year old boy who does not want to eat breakfast because he does not like the food being served (a bowl of porridge, an orange, and a glass of milk).
A 16-year old girl who does not want to eat breakfast because she thinks that she will get fat if she does.
A parent who has prepared the breakfast and understands that it is very important for everyone to eat a good breakfast.
The parent should show his or her understanding of the importance of a good breakfast by trying to convince the children to eat their breakfast. The parent should try to convince the children without threatening them with punishment or bribing them with treats or other rewards.
Encourage everyone to do their best to play the role assigned to them, but let them know that they can have fun as they do this.
First Role Play
Process
4. When they are ready, help the three actors to arrange themselves in front of the group. Ask them to go ahead and play their roles.
5. At the end of the Role Playing (or when it seems that the actors are just repeating themselves rather than introducing new information), say that the role playing is finished.
Point out that it is now time for the actors to stop being the people in the Role Play and go back to being themselves.
6. Ask the actors the following questions:
How did you feel when you were playing your role?
Have you ever behaved like that in your real life?
Ask the actors who were playing the 2 children:
Were you a little bit or totally convinced to eat breakfast by the person playing the parent?
In what ways was the parent convincing?
In what ways was the parent not convincing?
Ask the person who played the part of the parent:
Did you feel confident with your understanding of nutrition?
Is there additional information you needed?
Apply
Ask the following questions for the whole group to discuss:
How common do you think it is for a parent or other caregiver to try to convince children that it is important to eat breakfast?
Has anything like this happened in your family?
How convincing was the "parent?" What did the "parent" say that was most convincing? Least convincing?
If you were in the parent's role, what would you have said in order to convince the children to eat breakfast?
Why might some people not eat breakfast even if they are told about the benefits of doing so?
What ideas do you have for helping them change their attitudes and behaviour?
Second Role Play
Process
7. Ask for 2 volunteers and give each one of the following roles:
A very fat (obese) person who eats a lot of fried foods and a lot of sweets.
A friend who wants to convince the fat person to eat less fats and sugar and change to better eating habits.
The friend should use his or her understanding of nutrition to try to convince the overweight person to cut down on how much fat and sugar he or she eats every day.
The friend should be sensitive to the feelings of the overweight person.
8. When they are ready, help the two actors arrange themselves in front of the group and begin their Role Play.
9. After three to five minutes, end the Role Play Point and ask each actor the following questions:
How did you feel playing your part?
Have you ever felt like that before in your real life?
Ask the person who played the part of the fat person:
Do you think your friend was convincing about needing to eat less fat and sugar?
Ask the person who role played the friend:
Did you feel confident with your understanding of nutrition?
Is there additional information you needed?
10. Ask the following questions for the whole group to discuss:
How common do you think it is for a friend to try to convince a person to change his or her diet so that it contains less fat and sugar? Explain.
Did you believe the "friend"? What did the "friend" say that was most convincing? Least convincing?
If you were in the friend's role, what would you have said to convince the fat person to change his or her eating patterns?
Apart from eating too much fat and sugar, what do you think are some other reasons why people are overweight?
Why do you think some overweight people do not want to change their eating habits?
What ideas do you have for helping them change their attitudes and habits or behaviour?
What is the value of using role playing as a way of sharing knowledge?
When might you want to use role playing again?
11. End this activity by asking your group members to think of other role playing situations that would involve trying to get others to change their eating habits.
Discuss what the roles would be and encourage the group to think of questions that are important to discuss regarding each situation.
Notes
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This activity will take 3 group meetings to complete.
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Project skill: |
Create a piece of art that expresses the meaning of "a balanced diet" or Healthy Eating Plan. |
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Life skills: |
Communicating. |
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Food Guide for Namibia Poster Workpad and marker |
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Preparation: |
Make a sample piece of art to give group members an idea of what can be done. |
Collect any materials that you think may be useful for group members to use in this activity.
Tell your group members well in advance that they are going to make a piece of art and encourage them to collect materials which may be useful for this (see Step 3 below).
Introduction
1. Explain to your Youth Club members that this activity will give them the chance to be creative by making a piece of art. Tell them that the piece of art should show their understanding of what "a balanced diet" or Healthy Eating Plan means.
Experience
2. Let everyone look again at the Food Guide poster and remind them that the main picture or Food Guide shows the 4 Food Groups which contain all the nutrients needed for a "balanced diet".
Point out that you have displayed the poster to remind them of good nutritional information and to help them think of ideas for their project.
Explain that they should not copy this poster, but rather think of their own ideas for making a piece of art which would best explain the message.
3. Suggest different ways in which they could make their pieces - for example, drawings, collages made from magazines and newspapers pictures and sculptures using recycled materials.
Explain that they should think about using materials such as stones, twigs from trees, thorns, old wire, empty cans and bottles, and other items they find lying around the village.
4. Show the youth the piece of art you have created and explain how it shows what "a balanced diet" means to you.
Point out that they do not have to copy your example and that everyone should use their own ideas.
Explain that their pieces of art can look funny and strange or they can look realistic.
5. Tell everyone that they should bring their pieces of art to the next group meeting and that each person will be asked to describe what he or she was saying in their art.
Process
6. At the meeting, give everyone time to display their work where everyone can see it clearly.
7. Ask group members to describe how his or her artwork shows their understanding of "a balanced diet".
8. When everyone has done this, ask discussion questions such as the following:
What did you learn from this activity?
As you listened to each person explain what he or she thinks "a balanced diet" is, did you hear some ideas repeated from person to person? That is, were there any similarities in what members think about "a balanced diet?" If so, what were they?
Use your marker to list these ideas on a page of your Workpad so all group members can see them. Save the Workpad lists that you made during this activity to use again and refer to during future activities, or to get ideas for new and future activities.
Were there any ideas that were different from all the others? If so, what were they? (Make a separate list of these unique ideas.)
Using all these ideas about what "a balanced diet" means, summarise these ideas into a description or definition of "a balanced diet." Write it on your Workpad.
9. Encourage your group members to put up their art pieces in a public space somewhere in the village (for example, a shop, a clinic, the school, a community building).
Suggest that they:
Get permission to set up the display from the owner or manager of the building,
Discuss the date of their display or exhibition,
Make a name card to place by each piece of art to identify the person who made it,
Write their meaning of "a balanced diet" on a large piece of paper or cardboard and place that next to the art pieces so that people who see the display may understand it.
Apply
10. At a future group meeting, ask the youth if they got comments about their art display and what these were.
Discuss the importance of sharing their knowledge with their families and community.
Notes
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This activity will take 2 group meetings to complete.
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Project skill: |
Collecting recipes to create a valuable resource for current and future use |
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Life skills: |
Acquiring knowledge |
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What is needed for collecting recipes: notebooks, files, pens or pencils, etc Your own recipe file or collection |
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Preparation: |
Tell your participants in advance that they will need notebooks, files, pens or pencils, etc |
If you haven't already started a recipe collection of your own, try to have a few collected by the time you are going to present this activity.
Introduction
1. Explain to your group members that it is important that anyone who is to work with or share knowledge with others about nutrition should have good resources to use as reference.
Tell the group that this activity is about investigating, researching and collecting different recipes to make themselves such a resource.
Experience
2. Lead a discussion by asking: Why do you think collecting recipes would be of value to you and what are the benefits? Guide the discussion to encourage the following expected responses:
To make it easier to make a Healthy Eating Plan by learning how to combine foods;
To help with getting a good variety of foods in the diet by learning different ways to try different foods;
To learn to serve foods in interesting, appetising ways;
To learn more about cooking;
To collect and save traditional and other knowledge so that it can be of use.
3. Show your group the recipes that you have collected so far and explain that they may write or paste their recipes in a school exercise book, on the backs of recycled paper in their file, etc.
They should keep their recipe files in a safe envelope or other place so that they do not get lost or damaged.
Process
4. Point out that good recipes should not include fancy, expensive ingredients and should also make use of good, locally available or traditional foods.
Explain that creativity is important when some foods are not available and that they may also try to find recipes which they can change to include traditional foods or substitute one ingredient for another, for instance, replacing bought meat with dried fish.
5. End this part of the activity by leading a discussion to share ideas about where to find good recipes. Ideas are:
Asking family members for the recipe of your favourite dish. If necessary, have the person make it while you write down what is done, the quantities, etc.
Asking friends or relatives to contribute a delicious recipe;
Collecting recipes from magazines (Drum, True Love, You, etc). If magazines are not easily available, group members should think about going to see shopkeepers and asking them for the old magazines which would otherwise be thrown away. (These would also be good to collect as resources for other activities, such as making posters).
Many food containers have good recipes, such as the side of flour packets, the back of labels on tins, etc.
6. After some weeks, (when you think there has been enough time to collect recipes) let the group member bring a dish or make a dish in a meeting from one of the recipes they have collected. Remind them of the importance of Food Safety when preparing their food.
Let each person present their dish and describe the ingredients that were used to make it.
Have everyone discuss how many food groups the dish has in it and if necessary, what could be added, perhaps as another dish, to the meal to make it a balanced meal.
Let each group member then share this recipe with other group members.
Perhaps a good idea would be to make this Activity the last one, to celebrate the end of training a group of Rural Youth Cub members!
