Health/nutrition activities (training)

Education Category: Health
Ages: 0-4, 4-8, 8-12, 12-16, 16+

SUBJECTS

1. Food

2. Personal Hygiene

3. General Hygiene

4. Reproductive Health

5. Common diseases

6. Other

1. Food

• Ask what the students know about healthy food and discuss the importance of:
• Vitamins: vitamins are important for your immune system.
• Fruits and vegetables: contains a lot of vitamins and suit in a balanced diet.
• Fish: Fish is healthy and contains good fat, eat fish at least twice a week (if possible).
• Candy: candy is not healthy, because it contains a lot of sugar. Sugar is bad for your teeth and is not good for a balanced diet.
• Cleaning of food before consumption and preparation of food : do not use the same utensils for other foods when you used them already with preparing raw meat, always clean these first. This also accounts for using the same plate for other foods when you used this already for raw meat.
• Raw meat: a possible consequence of eating raw meat is that you will get sick because if you do not cook the meat, the bacteria will not die and you can get infected.
• Milk: products that contain milk should be consumed quickly after you bought these, when you cannot keep these in the fridge.

Food game

Buy different kinds of food and bring these to the class. Put them on the table and let the ‘students’ pick the products that fit in a healthy and balanced diets. Let them explain why they chose for a certain product.

2. Personal Hygiene

Ask what the students know about personal hygiene and discuss the importance of:

• Brushing your teeth: try to at least brush your teeth once a day with a toothbrush and some toothpaste. Brushing your teeth is important to keep your teeth healthy and to prevent you from getting teeth and mouth infections.
• Washing your hands: washing your hands is very important for your health. Always wash your hands before eating and after you used the toilet. Never put dirty hands in your mouth or in your eyes.
• Wear shoes: Always wear shoes or slippers when you go outside your house. They will protect your feet from getting hurt and prevent you from getting infections when you already have a wound in your feet.
• Wounds: if you have wounds try to keep them clean and try not to get sand or other stuff in the wound because it will delay the healing process.
• Coughing and Sneezing: Always cover your mouth with your arm or hands when you cough or sneeze. After this, wash your hands. Covering your mouth will reduce the chance of others getting infected by your bacteria/virus.

Personal Hygiene games

• Buy some soap and make sure there is water you can use in the class. Demonstrate washing your hands thoroughly and then let the students copy your hand washing.
• Sing the handwash song! You can find this song on youtube.
• Buy some toothbrushes and toothpaste and make sure there is some water you can use in the class. Demonstrate brushing your teeth and let the students copy this.

3.General Hygiene

• Ask what the students know about general hygiene and discuss the importance of:
• Clean the house: Clean your house to minimize the chance of cockroaches/rats in your house. These animals are transmitters of diseases so you do not want them in your house. Especially cleaning of the kitchen is important because the animals will come after the food.
• Dogs/ Cats: sometimes animals like dogs and cats have flees or diseases. If you play with the animals it is possible that the flees will get into your clothes and they can bite you.
• Garbage: do not play in the garbage because there will be flies in the garbage that can transmit diseases.

4. Reproductive Health (if possible)

Ask what the students know about reproductive health and discuss the importance of:

• Condoms: the use of condoms will protect you from getting STD’s like HIV and will prevent you from getting pregnant.

5. Diseases

Ask what the students know about common diseases and discuss the importance of:

• If you think you have a disease always go to the doctor so you can get medication.
• Be aware of the fact that you can get sick of a mosquito bite. Mosquitoes are carriers of diseases like Dengue and Malaria. Symptoms are high fever, severe headache, muscle pain. The eggs of mosquitoes are often in water that does not flow, so do not swim or play in this kind of water. The chance of transmission of these diseases increases when more people live in a small house and there is water nearby.
• Diarrhea: diarrhea is still number one cause of death in developing countries. Explain the importance of drinking water with sugar and salt to help your body contain the fluids.
   

6. Other

• Smoking: smoking is bad for your health, especially your lungs. If you smoke your chances of getting lung cancer increases.
• Drugs: drugs is bad for your health, it is expensive and addictive.
• Alcohol: too much alcohol is not good for your health.