• Students will become familiar with their own dietary needs and learn how to meet those needs within a single day using the food pyramid. 

• Students will compare nutritional and fitness needs of three types of people.

• Students will create a daily menu for themselves and athletes based on nutritional needs and the food pyramid.

• How to calculate calories from grams of fat and grams of carbohydrates.    (1gram of fat = 9 calories, 1gram of carbohydrates = 4 calories).

• Some basic math skills (addition)

• Nutritional guides for teenagers and athletes (active adults)

• Food pyramid provided by the USDA

• Calorie charts

• See Web sites listed below for this information.

1. Students will research the caloric intake for an average middle school student (based on activity level) and an active adult (athlete).

2. Students should break down the caloric intake for each person based on the ratios of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins needed as defined by appropriate dietary allowances.

3. Using the food pyramid and various calorie charts, students should create a well-balanced daily menu that reflects the nutritional needs and caloric content for a day. Students should write a narrative summary of their investigations. Included in this summary should be their own caloric needs for the day, an athlete's caloric needs, and an explanation of the best way to manage the dietary balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.

4. Before beginning the next step (creating a menu), introduce students to the You Are What You Eat chart (attached). This chart will help students organize their information effectively as they begin to create their menus.   

5. Create the menu.  In a creative and colorful way, students should create a menu that presents their daily meal plan - one menu for the student  and one menu for the athlete. 

This activity could be used at the end of a unit on nutrition, as it assumes some basic understanding of calculating calories.  

The chart has been provided to help students organize their research information.  The chart could also be used in assessment, in order to verify the dietary balance of the student menus. 

The menu can be created in a variety of ways, on paper, using a desktop publishing program, or even Power Point.

PHYS.com Nutrition / Fitness : A nutrition Web site backed by Tufts University, PHYS offers tables and charts outlining nutritional values, as well as tools for measuring your own dietary intake and calculators to determine various nutritional needs. 

Excite - Sports Nutrition Websites : A database of Web sites about sports nutrition including a link to the USOC nutrition information.

Mike's Calorie and Fat Gram Chart for 1000 Foods : A list of  foods and their caloric values, with a breakdown of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins.

• Computer(s)
• Internet Connection
• Internet Web Browser

• Outline the dietary needs for themselves only, create a menu based on one person. 

• Create a food diary based on one day of eating. Put those foods into a food pyramid to see how much of each category is being consumed.

• Take a menu from a local restaurant and ask students to select foods that would be nutritious.   Put those foods onto the food chart and calculate their calories and nutrients.

Gifted Students :

• Ask students to  keep a log based on one day of eating and compare this to their recommended daily allowances.

• Students could prepare one of the meals for their family and ask them to rate it based on taste, presentation, and nutritional value.

• Select a country participating in the Olympics and create a menu based on foods available from that country.