Building a foundation for a lifetime of healthy choices starts by teaching children about nutrition and wellness at an early age. This process starts at home with parents who set a good example, provide healthy snacks, let kids help in the kitchen and keep meal time fun. “Fun” is the key word. There are many games and resources available to make learning about nutrition and wellness enjoyable.
Board and Card Games
LearningResources.com offers three board games. Healthy Hurdles teaches about food groups while requiring players to burn off foods through exercise. Which Way Cafe lets kids order food and discover the health consequences of their choices. Pearly Whites Dental Health Game teaches oral hygiene along with learning about teeth. They also have a Health Foods Play Set to encourage children to learn about foods.
Website eNasco.com sells a variety of nutrition items from food replicas to card games and board games. The Healthy Habits Game won the Teacher’s Choice Award. It teaches nutrition, exercise, sleep and personal hygiene while allowing children to physically become “game pieces” as they move on “game spaces” placed on the floor. You will also find a Fruits and Vegetables Bingo Game, a Nutrition Toss-Up Ball, a Path to Pyramid board game, My Pyramid Pursuit game, Roxy’s Eat Right board game and several card games. Its "Hands-On Health" department offers board games for children that teach diverse topics such as heart health, bones, digestion, general safety and Internet safety.
Online Games
Winner of the 2009 Parents Choice Award, NourishInteractive.com provides “matching” nutritional tools—one for parents and the other for children—along with printable nutrition tools and games. After completing a free registration, children can choose from 10 different online video games. Titles include Falling Food, Pyramid Puzzles, Whack a Snack, Bon Appetite Arcade and Pyramid Panic. The games are designed to teach the food pyramid, the importance of exercise and how to create healthy meals.
Nutrition Explorations provides online video games such as Monster Nutrition and Little D Dragon. They also have pages of Puzzle Fun, Food Riddles and a nutrition tracker for kids to track whether their daily intake meets recommended requirements. Arianna’s Expedition nutrition program (for upper level elementary aged students) and Little D’s Nutrition Expedition (for lower level elementary students) teaches how to create nutritious meals and the health benefit of each food group.
Mission Nutrition on Kidshealth.org is an interactive quiz game that engages children through exploring items in a kitchen.
My Pyramid Based Sites
MyPyramid Blast-Off Game on Mypyramid.gov is an interactive computer game provided by the United States Department of Agriculture. It teaches children to fuel their rocket with food and physical activity.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains a children’s website called BAM (Body and Mind) that includes online games and information about food and nutrition, physical activity, safety, diseases and the body. It includes recipes, a customized fitness calendar and activity cards.
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