Youth in the H2O program are showing sugar whose boss by taking on a 30 Day Sugar Free Challenge. After watching Ted Talks about food addiction and sugars effects on the body our group is determined to change their relationships to food as well as educate our club members about the dangers of added sugar. We learned that the daily recommended amount of added sugar is only 24g, which is the equivalent to one greek yogurt or one vitamin water, so many of our youth were realizing that their daily intake was at least double that amount by lunch time.
In order to combat this dilemma, we will be looking at how to properly read nutrition labels and learn all of sugars sneaky names. The youth and the staff will keep a diary sugar journal where they will calculate all of the added sugars they intake, not counting naturally occurring sugars like in fruit or vegetables.
Then we will open up the challenge to the club by educating them on the effects of sugar on our bodies and encouraging them to increase their intake of water and stay away from many popular sugar sweetened beverages.The members will be able to compete against themselves to see who can cut the most sugar and who can drink the most water safely. The winners will get prizes and become ambassadors for the rest of the club.
Next week, we will be watching Fed Up, a documentary on Netflix that helps us better understand how the food industry sneaks sugars into our diets.
Be Healthy! 