Background Information

Nutrition is an aspect of life that affects all human beings walking the earth. No matter what country you may be in, people are always worrying about their health and how to improve it. In America, with the rise of the fast food industry, cheap prices and “dollar menus” are clouding our ability to see the lack of nutritional value in this food. Not to mention how convenient fast food may be for families on the go.
According to the statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics, 19 % of girls between the ages of 12 to 19 are considered overweight. An astounding 28% of boys in that same age group are considered overweight. See graph to compare those percentages to the previous years. This noticeable overweight population shows that the American youth is learning poor eating habits at a young age.
Many young people today who set out to loose weight end up putting themselves on some sort of crash diet. These are diets such as the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet, which don’t teach you how to live a healthy lifestyle. These diets are just for the short term. See in the picture of the South Beach Diet Book that these crash diets are made popular because they are easily accessible in almost every bookstore or library.
Dating back centuries, board games have been made in history as a source of entertainment. From an old Taiwanese game, Sz’Kwa, (below) to modern games such as Monopoly and the game of Life (below), players just want to entertain themselves for a little while and escape from the real world.
Something needs to be done to help young teens between the ages of 12 to 14 learn about nutrition. They are young and uneducated. Although they think that they know everything, they still have much to learn. In some schools, nutrition is taught but not enough. Even so, students may not learn to their full potential because it is not fun.