Teaching Kids to Make Healthy Choices

Available in English or Spanish!

This 90-minute program offers elementary school children “5 clues” to read food labels and detect marketing deceptions, while learning to identify and choose healthful foods. It includes a presentation (choice of an interactive PowerPoint or a video demonstration), followed by a hands-on activity to apply “detective” skills with real food packages. It is most appropriate for children in grades 3 and 4.

Tips and Flyers to Promote the Programs to Schools

• Tips (PDF)
• Flyer 1 (PDF)
• Flyer 2 (PDF)

Teacher Training PowerPoint

This overview can be followed by showing either version of the program presentation materials (PowerPoint and/or video)

• English

Program Presentation Materials

There are twp presentation options available:

1. PowerPoint slide show –allows the instructor to interact with the audience
   • English
   • Spanish
2. Video presentation – shows the program developers teaching students in a “magical” classroom
   • English (no subtitles)
   • English with English subtitles, and
   • English with Spanish subtitles

Program Manuals

Teacher's Manual

• ENGLISH (PDF)
• SPANISH (PDF)

Video Manual (Supplement to Teacher’s Manual)

• ENGLISH (PDF)
• SPANISH (PDF)

Supplemental Educational Materials (Optional)

Handout or Poster: 5 Clues for Nutrition Detectives

• ENGLISH (PDF)
• SPANISH (PDF)

Family Edition: Educational Booklet

• ENGLISH (PDF)
• SPANISH (PDF)

Family Assignment: Use the 5 Clues in Your Kitchen

• ENGLISH (PDF)
• SPANISH (PDF)

Supplemental Promotional Materials (Optional)

These are templates for materials that you can arrange to on your own

• 5 Clues Refrigerator Magnet
  • ENGLISH (PDF)
  • SPANISH (PDF)
• Nutrition Detectives Lapel Pin
  • ENGLISH (PDF)
  • SPANISH (PDF)

This “Food Label Literacy for Applied Nutrition Knowledge” (FLLANK) assessment tool is also known as the “Food Label Quiz.”

• Instructions (PDF)
• Pre-Program Quiz
  • ENGLISH (PDF)
  • SPANISH (PDF)
• Post-Program Quiz
  • ENGLISH (PDF)
  • SPANISH (PDF)
• Answer Sheet (PDF)

• Katz DL. School-based interventions for health promotion and weight control: not just waiting on the world to change. Annual Review of Public Health 2009;30:253-72.
• Katz DL, Katz CS, Treu JA, Reynolds J, Njike V, Walker J, Smith E, Michael J. Teaching healthful food choices to elementary school students and their parents: the Nutrition Detectives™ program. Journal of School Health 2011 Jan;81(1):21-8.
• Reynolds JS, Treu JA, Njike V, Walker J, Smith E, Katz CS, Katz DL. The validation of a food label literacy questionnaire for elementary school children. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 2012 May-Jun;44(3):262-6.