Dive Brief:
- Nutrition classes benefit from the use of the senses such as taste and smell, says Dr. Ingrid Kohlstadt, a faculty associate at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.
- Multi-sensory nutrition classes can reduce absenteeism and boost test scores, according to a study by the childhood obesity wing of the Institute of Medicine.
- Taste and smell are examples of chemosenses, which communicate with the brain. Dr. Kohlstadt argues that it's important to push these chemosenses into middle school classrooms since they are bombarded with so many bad choices, like fast food, and heightened chemosenses can help them make better decisions.
Dive Insight:
The correlation between multi-sensory nutrition classes and reduced absenteeism and boosted test scores isn't extremely direct, but the report by the Institute of Medicine gives some examples of how it can work. As Kohlstadt explains it, "Changes in health behaviors, such as hand washing, hydration and reducing sugar intake, lead to fewer sick days. And activities such as cooking with recipes, reading nutrition labels and counting calories appear to greatly improve math test scores, possibly because they utilize more senses than does most math classwork."
The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was created to curb obesity and limits foods with too much sugar, fat, and salt from being sold anywhere on school campuses. Yet, there appears to be a disconnect between policies requiring schools to serve healthier lunches and students being educated on healthy eating habits. In May the Harvard School of Public Health released a report which found that as much as 75% of vegetables and 40% of fruit being served in school cafeteria lunches is being thrown in the trash.