Tools for Tracking Nutrition and Fitness Goals

This section contains tools to help students keep track of their health, fitness, and nutrition goals. Some of these web sites are set up to help users research proper nutrition and healthy lifestyles.

Here's an idea: Start out by having your classes test their knowledge about their food choices for each meal and then create a daily food record. After a short quiz on matching food products to ingredients, have students answer questions about what the nutritional values in foods mean. Next, have students calculate calories and protein in their diets and compare daily totals with the suggested minimum requirements for their age groups. This is often an eye-opening activity, even for adults!

It is possible that this exercise may open up discussion on how teens' perception of body image can lead to eating disorders. Finally, encourage your students to keep food and exercise logs over a period of time to see their new habits become part of a healthy lifestyle.

---

Healthy Body Calculator http://www.dietitian.com/ibw/ibw.html

A feature of the Ask the Dietitian web site, this calculator requires an individual's age, gender, weight, height, level of activity, and hours of sleep to generate a health profile. An explanation is provided for each evaluation along with the number of calories and nutrients needed each day for good health. MSP full record

Calorie Control Council http://www.caloriecontrol.org/index.html

This site has a lot of basic information related to health and nutrition. In addition to articles there are several calculators with which users can measure calorie intake, body mass index, and calories used in activities. All are set up to give immediate feedback and analysis. Middle and high school health classes will find information on cutting calories and fat in the diet, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, and determining the nutritional content of low-calorie, reduced-fat foods and beverages. MSP full record

Downloadable Nutrition and Fitness Log http://www.health-fitness-tips.com/downloads/

This log is suitable for downloading and printing for classroom or home use. It comes in several formats that students will find easy to use to monitor their exercise and food intake. MSP full record

Stress-O-Meter http://www.bam.gov/sub_yourlife/yourlife_stressometer.html

Most kids in middle school do not realize that their mental health needs as much nourishment as their physical health. Stressful situations can affect performance at school, relationships with others, and success in sports. Students can check their stress levels with the brief quiz called the Stress-O-Meter. MSP full record

---

 Back to top

Copyright September 2006 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.