El Bichito: Nutrition

From Anna, an intern at El Bichito:

January 21-26
This week, our health education classes focused on nutrition. During the first few weeks, we spent some time asking the children about their eating habits: how often they ate fruit/vegetables/meat/protein, what their favorite foods are, if they had enough access to food at home, etc. After assessing their access to healthy food and their knowledge, we developed a curriculum that focused on a different aspect of nutrition each day. We discussed the importance of eating fruits and vegetables, what a balanced meal consists of, and sources of various vitamins/minerals. One of our main goals we hoped to achieve was to get the kids to choose fruit over candy when given the option. So to promote fruit as a good option for a dessert, we posted a sign that said "postre hoy," and bought the kids fresh mangos, grapes, bananas, and apples. They went crazy over this little treat! It's mango season down here right now, so we were able to buy enough mangos for all of the kids for 2 soles (less than $1) for a day. We hope to be able to buy the kids fresh fruit a few times a week because they usually only get one serving (if that) of fruit a day at home. 

To go along with our health classes, we devised a different game/activity that reinforced what we were teaching for each day in the week. On Monday, we had the kids do an art activity where they drew pictures of their favorite fruits and candies and then what they would look like if they ate only fruit or only candy. On Tuesday, the kids did another art activity, where they made their favorite "balanced plate" of food out of construction paper. We played fruit bingo on Wednesday, and on Thursday, the kids did a vitamins/minerals word search. On Friday, we played mata moscas using our newfound knowledge about vitamins and minerals! 

Anna and I think that all of our lessons and activities were worth it; on Friday, we ran into one of our kids, Elmer, on his way home from the nearby market. He was so excited to tell us that instead of buying candy with the money his mom gave him, he bought two apples! We really hope that these kids continue to respond well to our health classes and activities so that they can make healthy choices whenever they have the opportunity to!