This project was based off the concept of the My Plate plan of healthy eating. You may be familiar with the Health Pyramid but, this is not the My Plate. The Health Pyramid is the old food model; My Plate is the new and revised food model. My Plate shows the proportions of food in an everyday diet in the design of a plate. For example, half of your grains should be whole grain. Also, in your protein, your meats should be lean. These tips helped me to become a healthier person and to help others through this knowledge in this project.

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This concept of eating lean meats and low-fat dairies will help me in the future to live a healthier lifestyle - not only eating healthier, but also exercising those calories off. This is an example of the concept: energy in=energy out (calories in=calories out). This concept is very important to our society we live in today, considering child obesity. This project steered me away from obesity and brought me to the importance of eating right and burning the calories through exercise.

 

This project was to make a schedule based off the My Plate concept. We then made a poster displaying this information. This leads to the purpose of this project: to teach others and myself how to live a healthy eating lifestyle that prevents us from obesity. I am glad that I was part of making a poster that multiple people could use to be a more balanced person, physically.

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The requirements of the Healthy Eating Project were to plan a scheduled day of meals that someone else could use to have a healthy diet. This scheduled day consisted of breakfast, lunch, a snack, and dinner. We used the food groups - fruit, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy. Some people made vegetarian diet meals and others made meals with dairy allergies. I made a plan that applied to my life; it did not have any allergies or vegetarian diets in it. Mine also consisted of all of the food groups; however, these food groups did not need to be eaten in every meal. For example, we left out vegetables in breakfast. Also there were only 1-2 food groups in a snack because, it was a small snack - not a meal. Another important requirement was to make our fruits and vegetables all of the colors of the rainbow. The reason for this concept was because, every color represents a nutrient. Our bodies’ need all of the nutrients therefore, if we only ate one nutrient we wouldn’t be physically balanced in our eating. We also needed correct proportions of foods to fit with the My Plate requirements. For example, you need 5oz. (girls) and 6oz. (boys) in grains. We would find foods that met 5oz. or 6 oz. and evenly distribute them among the three meals (and one snack). One last thing was to use craftsmanship on the poster. This was important especially because others were reading it, not just ourselves. By using these concepts we made a schedule of healthy eating for someone for one day.

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The final draft of our My Plate planning sheet for the day took many revisions and I had to grow persistence to get through this process. The Planning sheet shows every food group (fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins, and dairy) and how much we had of that food group in each meal and for the entire day in ounces or cups. At first, I would get very frustrated with not getting the right proportion or having a variety of colors in my fruits and vegetables. For example, I had an instance where I had to change my original fruit to strawberries. This happened because I didn’t have a variety of colors.

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After I pursued to be approved I overcame this barrier using persistence. I became more persistent than I was before due to the struggle that brought me to be better. Persistence to me was to continue with my schedule and to keep correct proportions that went along with My Plate concept even when I didn't understand why the schedule didn't work out.This was difficult and definitely involved compromise, but I kept pursuing a day’s schedule following the My Plate requirements.

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In this artifact there are proportions (some are in ounces, some are in cups) that were in the bottom corner of every box which shows what that food equivalent is to the My Plate portions for each food group. These proportions and equivalents were hard to find to make a meal (or snack) and also follow the requirements of the My Plate. I had to grow in my persistent ability to get past this point. By doing this I had all of the proportions approved found in bottom left of artifact.

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This knowledge also took inquiry, because I had to ask myself if what I wrote followed every requirement. At first I would forget to ask myself if what I was doing was right, but later I became more inquisitive, because I started to remind myself that I had too many grains and not enough dairy. I would forget that I needed only two food groups in a snack, not three. I overcame this through inquiry. This is truly what made my work accurate. Inquiry to me in this process was to critique my work of the schedule of healthy eating and to use questions to help me move forward. There was time when I had too many dairy products in my schedule. I had to find other products that would better fit my day of healthy eating. I asked questions like: Does this fit the proportion size that should be for this meal? Do I have too much of this food group? Do I have a variety in colors in my fruits and vegetables? How can I evenly distribute each food group into each meal? These questions helped me to get my planning sheet or schedule for another person done. If I didn't ask myself these questions it would be very hard to have accurate proportions and reasonable foods that had specific nutrients.

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Nutrients are the things in your food that are essential for your body to work the way it should. Some examples of a nutrient are: water, minerals, protein, and vitamins. I used to not care about the fat in my meats and dairies, but now I have this concept of nutrients in the back of my head that tells me what would be the better choice. If I didn't learn about lean meats and dairies I may not have used those implications in my life.

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I grew in persistence because I used markers, Sharpies, and colored pencils and sometimes I would make a mistake and start over. When I started to make my poster I was using colored pencils on my snack side and Sharpie to write with. Then I started on breakfast. After I was around half way done with the breakfast section, I realized that I had written in the dinner section! This challenged my persistence and caused me to grow in it. I had to start over and keep pursuing the goal: to help myself and others be more healthful in this poster. Even though I had to start over, I used persistence. Before this process I would be very frustrated but, when I pursued, I overcame this challenge. In this situation, persistence was when there is a barrier in front of you and you don’t let it knock you down. That barrier was messing up with a marker or a Sharpie, but since I didn’t give up I still had a great product in this process of making this poster.

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To display our information we made a poster that was similar to the My Plate picture. Our poster had three plates and a cup (for dairy) representing each meal. Also there was a snack section off to the side that showed the proportions for a snack. This end product was the result of persistence. When I kept trying I got to this point. If I didn’t even try to pursue this poster, it would not be here because, I would have given up.