Primary

Too Many "Others" Foods Tag
Physical education teachers Nancy Meschter and Debbie Young, Upper Township Elementary School in Marmora, New Jersey, developed this fun game of tag to demonstrate the importance of eating healthy, Five Food Group snacks.

Materials and Advance Prep

• A copy of Too Much Junk Food by Jan and Stan Berenstain
• Playground balls to fill three sacks
• Balloons to fill two sacks
• Five paper, mesh or cloth sacks
• Fill three sacks with playground balls (they should be heavy)
• Fill the other two bags with balloons. (Note you may want to use the Five Food Group colors - Milk - blue; Meat - purple; Vegetable - green; Fruit - red; Grain - orange.)
• Review information about "Others" category foods

What To Do:
1. Open the lesson by reading Too Much Junk Food aloud. The book is about how Mama Bear takes Papa Bear's and the Cubs' "junk food" snacks and replaces them with healthy snacks. The book explains that eating healthy allows the Cubs and Papa Bear to do more activities without being tired.

2. Tell students that instead of calling these foods "junk foods" like Mama Bear does, we call them "Others" foods. These foods don't give us what we need to grow healthy, learn and play. Ask for examples of "Others" foods.

3. Have a 2- to 3-minute discussion about the book. Ask:

• Why did Mama Bear want the Cubs and Papa Bear to eat healthy snacks? Why do we need healthy snacks? She wanted them to have energy and not be so tired. Healthy snacks give us the energy we need between meals so that we can learn and play throughout the day.
• Why aren't foods like chips, soda and donuts good to eat for snacks? These foods don't give up what we need to grow, stay healthy, learn and play.
• How do we know if a snack is healthy? Healthy snacks come from the Five Food Groups
• When do we usually need a snack? We usually need a snack between meals, for example in the morning between breakfast and lunch, after school and sometimes before bed.
• What are some examples of healthy snacks you could bring for morning snack or eat at home after school? Accept all reasonable answers.

4. Play tag.

• Assign three students to be Otto or Olivia "Others" foods. Give each of them a sack of playground balls. Tell them the balls represent food like French fries, cookies, soda, potato chips, etc.
• Assign two more students to be Frank or Fiona Five Food Group Snacks. Give each of these students a sack of balloons. These foods represent foods like milk, apples, peanut butter, whole-wheat crackers and cheese, carrots and other healthy snacks.
• Otto and Olivia carry their sack and try to tag other students. Anyone they tag is frozen because they are full of "Others" foods snacks. Frank's and Fiona's job is to carry their sack of balloons and unfreeze anyone who is frozen by filling their bodies with nutritious, Five Food Group snacks.
• After a minute, assign new students to these roles and play again. Repeat so that many students have the opportunity to carry the sacks.

5. Discussion.

• Ask students who carried the playground balls how they felt. They probably will say tired, out of breath, too heavy to carry around, and maybe, unbalanced.
• Ask students who carried the balloons how the felt. They probably will say fine, hardly ever tired and ready to play more.
• Contrast the responses, pointing out that Five Food Groups foods make the best snacks because they give us the energy we need to grow, stay healthy, learn and play.