Diversity

Food choices and customs in families are usually entrenched in a deep-rooted value system, so teachers need to be able to help students develop healthy food habits whilst acknowledging that the students, and their friends and families may all have different ways of doing this.

Recognising that each student has a unique context in which he or she lives is essential if student needs are to be addressed. Students should be allowed to pursue goals and actions which are consistent with their own context, selecting goals which they identify as important and relevant to their lives. Consider the following classroom situations:

Teacher: "Susan, we do not serve cold baked beans with a roast dinner"

Student: "But Miss, we always have baked beans with our roast"

Teacher alternative: "Susan, I hope that your evaluation will show that this mix of vegetables supports your goals"

Teacher: "Daniel, you can't use that cheap cut of meat - it will take too long to cook"

Student: "But Miss, that's what mum buys"

Teacher alternative: "Daniel, you will have to do some forward planning to ensure that you have time to cook that meat - or you could choose another dish to meet your goals"

Social justice

To maximise the access, participation and outcomes for the full range of students, a curriculum apropriate to the full range of students is needed.

Supportive environments

Providing a supportive environment helps to address the concept that healthy choices should be easy choices. This supportive environment might be in the form of an emotional support or physical support. Emotional support can be provided with letting students work in cooperative groups and accepting students’ cultural and social diversity. With respect to a physically supportive environment, the school context might provide for example water fountains, pleasant eating environment, refrigeration facilities, and health promoting food at the canteen and on school excursions. In formal curriculum time, students coould work on bringing about change in some of these environmental concerns.

Other ways that such an environment can be developed include:

• involving parents in the curriculum - writing letters home about what students are doing, involving them in the classroom activities, on classroom excursions where food is being served
• the school canteen selling good range of health promoting foods
• school camps and excursions providing healthy foods, and preferably involving students and parents in its planning
• modelling by teachers of healthy food behaviours
• food prepared in the school by teachers and students to be health promoting
• taking students on excursions related to food production or preparation to organisations which promote healthy food choices
• articles in the school newspaper about health and nutrition
• articles in the local newspaper about health promoting activities in the school
• pleasant environments for students to eat lunch
• fresh, clean water readily available (particularly in tropical and sub-tropical areas)
• a school policy on health promotion
• cooperative goals structures in the classroom, working in teams to achieve food-related goals
• positive teacher-student relationships
• positive classroom environment.