VIVA LA VITA(mina)!
Healthy diet
***
4 - 5 hours
„Cheer for the V.I.T.A.M.I.N!”
Duration: around 5 min.
Group size: Any
Materials: None
Hints for the facilitator:
- The Facilitator should NOT say at the beginning what the word is, and let participants guess the word.
- It is up to The Facilitator to create a very „sportive” and „active” attitude among participants
- The Facilitator can ask participants to imitate exactly the style and tone they are presenting, therefore there might be several variations of this energizer: „The quiet one”; „The loud one”, „The ballerina one”, „The elephant one” one etc. and it can be repeated in different ways.
The Facilitator asks the group to pretend they are cheerleaders, and, they move their body by shaping the letters shouted by their chief. The word which will be spelled is VITAMIN. The game goes like that:
The Facilitator: Give me V! – Participants shout „V!” and create it by standing with their hands up high
The Facilitator: Give me I! – Participants shout „I” and create it by standing straight with their hands down
The Facilitator: Give me T! – Participants shout „T” and create it by standing with their hands put up symmetrically on the left and right side
The Facilitator: Give me A! – Participants shout „A” and create it by standing with their legs straight but spread a little bit and their hands formed as „ a roof” above their heads
The Facilitator: Give me M! – Participants shouts „M” and create it by standing in a former position, but their hands form small „M” above their heads
The Facilitator: Give me I! – Participants shout „I” and do the same gesture as it was shown previously
The Facilitator: Give me N! – Participants shout „N” and create it with their fingers, using the pointing finger of their left hand and pointing and middle ones of the right hand.
When the whole word is spelled, The Facilitator asks the group for which word they were cheering up. Once they guess the word, the Facilitator asks everybody to shout with energy and cheerleaders’ attitude: „Go, go, vi-ta-min, vi-ta-min, vi-ta-min”!
1. „Vitamins’ ABC”
Duration: around 30 min.
Group size: around 25 people
Materials: a big bowl with questions for the quiz, pens and notebooks/paper, stopper to count the time
The Facilitator divides participants into smaller groups of 5 people and announces that every team will take part in a Quiz which will check their basic knowledge on VITAMINS. Participants cannot use their smartphones or any other Internet sources. They will be 2 rounds – the first team draws one question and has 1 minute to prepare an answer using the knowledge by all group members. If they cannot answer the question within 1 minute, it can be answered by another team. Then the other teams are going through the same procedures. If any of the teams do not know the correct answer, the Facilitator reads it out loud. The first round finishes when all 5 teams got the questions and the chance to answer them.
Points: 2 for every correct answer for the question of „my team”, 3 for answering question of „other team”
Q&A:
A) What are vitamins?
Vitamins are one of a group of organic substances that is present in minute amounts in natural foodstuffs.
B) How many vitamins there are?
There are currently 13 recognized vitamins.
C) How we divide vitamins?
Vitamins are either fat-soluble or water-soluble.
D) What is the characteristic of fat soluble vitamins?
Fat-soluble vitamins are stored in the fatty tissues of the body and the liver. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble. These are easier to store than water-soluble vitamins, and they can stay in the body as reserves for days, and sometimes months.
Fat-soluble vitamins are absorbed through the intestinal tract with the help of fats, or lipids.
E) What is the characteristic of water-soluble vitamins?
Water-soluble vitamins do not stay in the body for long. The body cannot store them, and they are soon excreted in urine. Because of this, water-soluble vitamins need to be replaced more often than fat-soluble ones. Vitamin C and all the B vitamins are water soluble.
F) List at least 7 vitamins.
A, B, D, E, K, C, B2, B3, B5, B12, B6, B9, B7.
G) What is a dietary supplement?
A product taken orally that contains one or more ingredients (such as vitamins, minerals, herbs, or amino acids) that are intended to supplement one’s diet and are not considered food.
L) Food or dietary supplements?
The overall diet as the best way to get enough nutrients for good health. Vitamins should come firstly from a balanced and varied diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables. However, in some cases, fortified foods and supplements may be appropriate. A health professional may recommend vitamin supplements for people with certain conditions, during pregnancy, or for those on a restricted diet.
M) What is avitaminosis?
Nutritional deficiency state characterized by relative insufficiency of one or more vitamins in the diet; manifested first by depletion of tissue levels, then by functional changes, and finally by appearance of morphologic lesions.
N) What is hypervitaminosis?
A condition resulting from the ingestion of an excessive amount of a vitamin preparation, symptoms varying according to the particular vitamin involved; serious effects may be caused by overdosage with fat-soluble vitamins, especially A or D, but more rarely with water-soluble vitamins.
Hints for the facilitator:
- Encourage teams to brainstorm and use their knowledge and experience in answering the questions – if needed, give them a bit more time to give an answer, for example 1,5 min.
- At the end, ask the following questions: Was the quiz easy or difficult? Do you take dietary supplements? Do you choose your food according to what vitamins it contains?
- To sum it up you can show a short video „The ABCs of vitamins”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=228&v=LBkMLwC_oXU
Sources:
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com – Medical Dictionary
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/195878.php – Medical News Today
2. „Vitamin lotto!”
Duration: around 60 min.
Group size: Any
Materials: 13 ping pong balls with names of vitamins written on them, a big bowl/hat; electronic devices with Internet access, basic knowledge of CANVA, GIMP or PHOTOSHOP program
The Facilitator divides the group to smaller ones (4 people max.) and explains to the group that in the next task they need to draw a ping pong ball with a name of a certain vitamin on it and prepare an INFOGRAPHIC about it, including:
- general characterization;
- in which products, it can be found naturally;
- what symptoms signalize its deficiency;
- what symptoms signalize its overdosage.
The Facilitator can show examples of infographics, using the ones that are already created for the promotion of „Start now” project: https://www.facebook.com/startnow.erasmusplus/
The Facilitator should also show basic steps of how to work in one of the mentioned above programs – CANVA/GIMP/PHOTOSHOP.
Ready infographics should be presented to everybody and posted on social media with
#startnow
#vivalavita(mina)!
3. „V-shop”
Duration: around 30 min.
Group size: Around 20 people
Materials: 1 printed out Appendix 1 (infographic) about the vitamins for each participant forms: 1x „baskets with benefits”,1x „vitamin products”, scissors, glue, pens, paper.
The Facilitator cuts out the baskets and the vitamin products. Each basket contains the benefits provided by the vitamin represented. Then he/she divides the group into 4 teams. Each team draws 3 baskets which they need to discuss and decide which vitamin products they will need from the „V-shop”, in order to fulfil their baskets. They can choose 3 products per basket. Once they decide, they make a „shopping list” and the „team leader” goes to the „V-shop”. At the „V-shop” (a table next to The Facilitator), they can choose only once and only those products that are written on their list – the „team leaders” present their lists to The Facilitator – „shop assistant”, who is handling their shopping. In case, there are no more products they have listed, at the shop, the „team leader” has to decide what to do. Once the „team leader” brings the products the group can decide again whether they need them or whether they will take different products. At this moment, the Facilitator announces, „the open market”, where groups can exchange their „useless” products. The rule is that each team can exchange maximum up to 3 products. The „Open Market” lasts 5 minutes. After this time, the Facilitator checks out the teams’ baskets according to the answers presented on the infographic. At the end printed infographics are distributed among the participants.
Evaluation
At the end of all activities, the Facilitator asks participants to share their personal experience with taking supplements and delivering vitamins through eating certain products. The Facilitator can ask participants, to deepen the reflection and discussion, whether there are specific cases when taking supplements is more effective than natural vitamins; which of those two is more beneficial for our health and what is the participants’ opinion on the national market of diet and vitamin supplements.
„Vitamin Quizzing"
This activity can be done with the same workshop group.
Duration: around 2 hours
Group size: Any
Materials: smartphones with Internet, computer for The Facilitator, Kahoot application
The Facilitator presents to the group Kahoot application
(available here https://kahoot.com/welcomeback/),
which is dedicated to play educational quizzes and create them by everybody who would like to make their educational process more interesting and interactive, and asks participants to create pairs or small groups.
Every group needs to have 1 device with Kahoot application.
Then the Facilitator invites the group to play a Vitamin quiz:
https://create.kahoot.it/l/#quiz/85a45ed4-c1c3-4809-bdde-c6adf9ba5588,
following the steps appearing on the screens of their smartphones. Only the Facilitator is a „game moderator” and they can play new question.
After finishing the quiz, participants in the small teams in which they were playing, are asked to create their own Kahoot quiz about vitamins that will be dedicated to the primary school pupils.
Ready quizzes can be tested and feedbacked by the rest of participants and the shared on the social media as a result and promotion of this topic within „Start now” project.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
