Qualitative Eating!

Over the last two weeks, I have kept a food and exercise journal where I carefully monitor my body's intake and activity levels. It has been an eye opening experience! I was amazed to discover a variety of trends that, without the aid of the journal, I would have never realized.

I'm a late-afternoon snacker. My classes get out at 3:30, and by 4:00, I was always eating something. It wasn't always the best somethings either. I tended toward whatever was hanging out, easily accessible, and not always the healthiest. I tended toward crunchy, salty or sweet foods such as potato chips or honey-roasted peanuts, and I ate them by the handfuls! As I analyzed this particular eating habit, I wondered... how often will my students come home from a long day of class, three to four hours after lunch, and grab whatever they can get their mitts on? How does that impact their growth and health as they progress through their development, and how can I as a teacher provide them with healthier options?

Perhaps I would provide a snack in the afternoon, toward the end of the day, that would carry them to dinner, or perhaps I would educate them on their own eating practices when outside of school. Maintaining their own food journal would be an enlightening experience for them, I'm sure, where they realize, just as I did, that there's too much time between lunch and dinner, and our hunger drives us toward interesting choices.

When it came to my own goal setting, after the first week of journaling, I decided to change this afternoon snack trend. I decided to eat healthier and more filling foods at lunch, allowing me not to be Zombie-like hunger driven to the sodium- and sugar-filled snacks. I also decided to add a late afternoon walk into my habits, noting that my life schedule was not allowing for time to move and get outside. I felt that this goal was reasonable, and like most goal-setters, I maintained it for the first couple days. But then, like clockwork, I fell into bad habits.

There is a particular guilt that is experienced when you fail a goal. I think the most important thing I can teach my students about goal setting is that it is expected that you won't always perfectly maintain a newly set goal. There will be failures, but it is how we synthesize and utilize the knowledge gained from those failures that will help us create a stronger fortification to goal success next time around. It is okay to fail, but what do we learn from those failures to help us reach successes is the real lesson learned.

Finally, in reflection on this journaling experience, I think I will maintain course and keep a record of what I eat and how I keep active. We tend to "not sweat the small stuff" in life, believing that the "most important meals of the day" are the only ones who play into our health. It doesn't matter what we eat between lunch and dinner, because the important thing is eating healthy during dinner--nevermind the Butterfinger we had between meals, that doesn't count! For students, in a period of increased obesity and diabetes, I think it is important for them to realize that the Butterfinger does count, as does the food we eat in our regular meal times. Quantity becomes more important than quality. It is about eating enough, not eating well. By students taking a step back and looking at how they eat in a qualitative view instead of solely and quantitative one.