By Will Butler
Staff Writer
Now, more than ever, students of all ages are eating unhealthy diets, and that has caused an obesity epidemic in America. A new course at Summit Tahoma, which was introduced during the second round of Expeditions, is Wellness and Movement, taught by Danielle Redlin. The course is focused on teaching good eating habits, learning about certain food health benefits and doing daily exercise.
On the second day, students watched a Netflix documentary called “Forks Over Knives” about the food industry, how it pollutes the earth and how much it affects animals.
In addition to learning about healthy eating, students also completed yoga practices.
Ms. Redlin said, “We usually start out the class with either starting or working on a unit – health-related – and then we do movement, whether it is yoga, Pilates, or a cardio workout.”
She said her goal by the end of Expeditions is that students “have a better perspective and understanding of how to be a healthy human being.”
As the obesity epidemic in America continues, Ms. Redlin feels it is important to teach students to eat healthy and to learn about what they are eating. She explained, “There needs to be an overall heavy focus on health and movement in all high schools, especially since kids at this age are starting to get more responsibilities for cooking and eating on their own; but, a lot of times, I don’t feel like they have enough support in making the best decisions for their health because they haven’t been taught a lot of times what is healthy and what is not healthy.”
Tahoma sophomore Derick Ibarra said the most important thing he has learned from the class was “E-coli, because it was a very bad disease, and a lot of kids were affected by it from eating a lot of hamburgers and a lot of processed products.”
Tahoma sophomore Jasdeep Sing said his favorite part of class is yoga. “[It] helps me get energized for the rest of the day,” Sing explained. He added that the most important thing he has learned is that “to lose weight you don’t have to eat pills or do all of the other extra stuff – just eat whole foods, plain and simple.”
Sing said Summit Tahoma should add some sort of healthy eating information to the curriculum because there is currently an obesity epidemic in America. “People eat a lot of junk food and don’t know the outcome of them eating it,” he said. “So they need to be informed and change all [these] bad eating habits.”
The Wellness and Movement course has a lot more to offer than just simple eating tips and exercises. While it can help students learn about foods and teach them what is healthy and not healthy to eat, it can also help them live a healthier, happier life.
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