Background

The eatwell balance of good health plate shows food split into five categories according to how much of the diet they should make up. This plate shows:

• bread, cereals, potatoes, rice, pasta (33%)
• fruit and vegetables (33%)
• milk and dairy foods (15%)
• meat, fish, eggs, pulses, beans, nuts (12%)
• treats high in fat and/or sugar (8%)

The key message to deliver at this age is is that a healthy diet contains a balanced mix of food types. Children should not worry about achieving the balance shown on the plate at every meal, but should aim to eat food in these quantities over a week. Encourage children to eat a wide variety of foods and include lots of fruit and vegetables and few sugary or fatty foods. Children should not think of any food type as 'bad' (unless it is mouldy), as we do not want to put children off eating, or worry them about their diet.

Lesson suggestions

1. Ask pupils why they think we need to eat. After they have come up with reasons ask them how much we need to eat. Show them the 'Why do I need to eat?' page in the Food technology D&T section of this site. Pages can be projected onto a wall, shown in a computer room, or shown on an interactive whiteboard. Help pupils to understand that we need to eat more if we are bigger or more active so a man who is a marathon runner needs to eat a lot more than a woman who works at a desk.
2. Ask children to categorise the food they eat into groups. See what groups they come up with and then show them the 'What's in the food I eat?' page in the Food technology D&T section of this site.  Help them to understand that we need to eat a variety of food groups to help our bodies do the variety of things we need it to do.
3. Ask children how many fruit and vegetables they ate yesterday. Show them how important fruit and vegetables are in making up a balanced diet by showing them the balance of good health plate in the 'What should I eat?' page in the Food technology D&T section of this site. Help children to understand that about of a third of their food should come from fruit and vegetables.
4. As a plenary activity, children can try the drag and drop activity in the 'Making a meal of it' page.

Children in Year 2 may also like to try the following activities for fun or for homework:

• Apple scrabble in the English section, and
• Apple dot-to-dot
• Tree dot-to-dot
• Apple puppet
• Apple Halloween mask activities in the Art section