What were you taught in school about healthy eating, calories, and eating disorders?

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sylkates
sylkates Posts: 173 Member
in Chit-Chat
I was just thinking today about how many people struggle with being overweight, and how many people it seems don't know where to even start with a plan to lose the weight. It got me thinking about how I learned everything I know about nutrition and calorie counting.

I learned most of it online. Because of my own interest in it.

In school, we had a health and fitness semester in high school health class. We were shown models of 5 lbs of fat, and told that we should eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise more to lose weight. We took a body fat percentage measurement.

There was even a lesson on the dangers of eating disorders- specifically, anorexia and bulemia.

But we didn't do any meal planning. We didn't get into the fats vs. sugars debate. We didn't talk about satiety. And we didn't even address the existence of binge eating disorder outside of the context of binging/purging cycles that are part of anorexia/bulemia. We didn't talk about binging on its own, how to deal with it, we didn't talk about what professional services we should seek out if we're having trouble with it.

I feel lucky that I had the time and the Internet to do my own research on this, after the school didn't really provide much.

I am wondering, if other people had similar experiences in school? Did you have nutrition lessons? Did you learn from them, or did you not care at the time? Was binge eating disorder even talked about? Did you even hear anything about modifying diet to lose weight, or was all of the emphasis on weight control placed on exercise alone?

Do you think that better nutrition education would help more people find help for their weight issues or eating disorders earlier?

Replies

  • _John_
    _John_ Posts: 8,641 Member
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    Nutrition is so "political" now that it's hard to get it without an agenda.

    I had next to nada in HS, undergrad or gradschool (toxicology BS and Ph.D).

    We talked a little about nutrition in undergrad human physiology.
  • Zombella
    Zombella Posts: 490 Member
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    We talked about some nutrition in high school, but only the pyramid and basically eat fruits and veggies! We also had health class where we talked about bulimia and anorexia, but nothing really about BED. I don't understand why that is. I didn't really learn much from any of it.
  • CMae818
    CMae818 Posts: 10 Member
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    I'm currently an education major, although I've been debating on switching to nutrition. Ultimately my goal is to teach future generations the importance of nutrition and health. I'm hoping I will be able to have a positive impact on my future students by throwing in nutritional facts as well as modeling positive choices. I definitely feel like more education on nutrition should be added in schools!
  • aub6689
    aub6689 Posts: 351 Member
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    Learned the USDA bull food pyramid in grade school and HS. Probably one class in 7th grade health was devoted to eating disorders. Through anatomy and physiology understood metabolic processes but very little about individual nutrition. Not until grad school did I feel I learned anything that wasn't vastly influenced by the food industry.
  • ncboiler89
    ncboiler89 Posts: 2,408 Member
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    In HS, I was taught that if you stick your finger down your throat after a nice meal, you may have a problem.
  • CooCooPuff
    CooCooPuff Posts: 4,374 Member
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    In high school, we just watched an episode of Biggest Loser and Supersize Me in gym.

    My chemistry teacher also told me that if i worked out before eating anything, I'd burn double the calories.
  • ncboiler89
    ncboiler89 Posts: 2,408 Member
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    CooCooPuff wrote: »
    istry teacher also told me that if i worked out before eating anything, I'd burn double the calories.

    Solid teaching :|
  • zoeysasha37
    zoeysasha37 Posts: 7,088 Member
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    In highschool we talked about nutrition a lot in home economics class. We talked about how to make a nutritious meal for your family and how to grocery shop . we made several dishes and learned why each dish was a good choice for a family meal.
    In gym class we learned about how staying active was important for overall health and the sport didn't really matter much ,as long as one stayed active .
    In health we spoke about anorexia and bulimia . we did not speak about binging and that's probably because it wasn't as recognized back then. We also learned about calories and how many calories you eat effects your weight.
    I went to a blue ribbon high school in a prominent area . these where the only classes I actually liked so I played attention. I slept through every other subject and skipped just about every math class I ever had !
    I was interested in food, nutrition, health and fitness from an early age.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
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    I remember way back in middle school (OMG, over 25 years ago!) they held an assembly and showed us one of those after-school-special kind of films about a girl who was bulimic.

    I never had any funky issues with food or body image, maybe because I had healthy role models and was always told how healthy, athletic and pretty I was by my family. My family tends to be on the tall, slim side - and so am I. I also loved to cook and eat meals with my family. Nutrition, health and fitness have always been big interests of mine.

    So the film didn't concern me too much, since I couldn't relate personally, but I did feel bad for the main character. I thought, "How sad. I would never be like her. I could never do something like that."

    Anywayz... as I walked down the aisle on the bus that afternoon, a couple of kids (one of them significantly overweight) started pointing and loudly commenting that I looked just like that girl in the movie! (We did have the same hairstyle.) They said I was so pale and skinny I must have an eating disorder. Some laughed, one guy announced that it was "just pathetic," while others joined in agreement. I was so humiliated. Thankfully, it died down after a week or so and I went back to being a wallflower again.

    I don't think a lot of those kids got the point of the lesson. The film was so simplistic and stereotypical. They simply learned to associate a certain physical look with eating disorders, and then started looking around for people to judge.

    So that's my awesome personal experience with eating disorder education. :(
  • CooCooPuff
    CooCooPuff Posts: 4,374 Member
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    ncboiler89 wrote: »
    CooCooPuff wrote: »
    istry teacher also told me that if i worked out before eating anything, I'd burn double the calories.

    Solid teaching :|
    American education at its finest!

    Outside of that, she was actually a pretty good teacher.

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