Funky fit food for healthy teenagers was the brief and last month the year 9 technology students at St Mary’s College invited local MP Marian Hobbs and others to breakfast to sample the results.
This year the college has embraced the Ministry of Health’s theme of ‘healthy eating healthy action’ which pervades the different strands of the school’s technology programme.
So the breakfast menu included homemade muesli with lots of dried fruits and nuts, yoghurt, fresh fruit, and toast with peanut butter, vegemite or jam. The students prepared most of the food; Turners and Growers donated bananas and Watties provided the canned fruit and baked beans.
For entertainment, students danced in their boxer shorts which they made in the soft materials (sewing) class, others took part in a quiz to draw out elements of healthy eating – different food groups and their particular action on the body.
There were displays of mini exercise machines which the structures and mechanisms class had created to focus on problem-solving. Others demonstrated a boxing glove which had a counter embedded to keep track of the punches.
Another component of the first semester’s technology stream focused on electronic research or ICT (information computer technology) – the students’ method of researching new ways of eating to make sense of what is best for healthy living.
Marian Hobbs told the students about her personal quest for fitness in the face of Parliament’s rigorous demands, how a good breakfast had become important for her healthy eating regime and how exercise had helped her lose 25 kilos and transformed her life, enhancing her quality of sleep.
But, she said, it took a crisis during one parliamentary question time when she faced 17 questions on the Resource Management Act to make her realise that she needed to do something about her lifestyle.
Breakfast became very important to achieving a healthier lifestyle, she told the girls. And, she said, it was important to do it for herself, not for anyone else. She now has an exercise regime to support her healthy eating and her weight continues to reduce.