Fixing What We Eat RHSS CLUB
Ted Talks Civic Issue By: Mohamed Bahgat
Introduction
Hello,
My name is Mohamed Bahgat. I am forming the Fixing what we eat club in Rick Hansen Secondary School. I am doing this to help my fellow school mates understand what is wrong with what we eat and what we should do about it. This club is to help raise awareness about what we eat is wrong and how to fix it. This will benefit the people and will help them to take action. Also, it will teach them how to eat healthy and make them change things by spreading the message. Also this idea came from the Ted Talks video I chose below. Anybody is welcome to join.
Activities
- Free Healthy Breakfast. Once a Month we will have free fresh breakfast. It will only be locally grow food. It will all be bought from the farmers market. Only things like forks, knives, spoons, and plates will be purchased from the supermarket
- Showcase room. Members from our club will have to create Bristol boards regarding the issues on eating unhealthy and how to eat healthy. There will be a room open during lunch which will allow anybody interested in reading them to come and join.
- Healthy lunch in the cafeteria days. There will be certain days which the cafeteria will serve only healthy foods. Also it will be at a discounted price.
- Contests. Me and my team will randomly go into the cafeteria and see who is eating healthy. Whoever is eating something like an apple or an orange, or even broccoli will be given a prize. This will not happen every day.
- Free apples. Once a week there will be a huge basket filled with apples that anybody can take an apple from. It will be located in the office.
- TV adds. We will advertise to eat healthy on the announcements and on the T.V. channel.
- Healthy food coupons. If people want to eat healthy cheaper, we will give free coupons for healthy foods in the cafeteria.
- Competitions. There will be contests to see who knows what is healthy and what is not after school in a specific room. The contests will be things like a kahoot.
- Surveys. We will have surveys to see who is eating healthy.
Where and When?
Our Club meets after school in room 120. It is from 3:30 to 4:30 pm. We meet up on Tuesdays. It is only once a week. Sometime we will meet up twice a week because we might have to finish a project or something. Also if it is twice a week, one of the meet ups will be in the cafeteria before school at 7:30. Also it will be 1 hour. It will be announced on the announcements in the morning.
What are our goals?
The goals of the Fixing what we eat club is basically what it says. We want people to literally fix what they eat. We want to raise awareness and at the same time generate action. This group is focused generally for the people in the school. But if the people in the school can create change in their own lives and help their family and friends, that would be awesome. We want people to eat healthy, save the environment, save their health, and not let companies sell them junk. Even more specifically our goals are:
- Save people from getting cancer, heart disease/stroke, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and obesity
- Prevent pollution. This will work if we consume less internationally made foods and buy our local foods first. It will save a lot of gas. Think about it. We have foods coming all the way from South America such as bananas and mangoes.
- Prevent the killing of a lot of animals. We eat so much meat that we can make the animals that we eat such as lamb, cow, chicken, pig, sheep etc. go to the moon and back 5 times. That is the amount of food we eat in just 1 year. Also that is only in the U. S. Also, the number of animals killed for food in the U.S is 10 Billion a year.
- To stop the companies from selling us this junk. Companies make so much money from selling us junk food. We have to reduce the amount of junk food we consume and put an end to this business.
How will we know if this club brought positive change/awareness?
We will know if this brought positive change/awareness if we see that what we are doing as a club is benefiting/is being used by the people who attend Rick Hansen. For example. If we see that the apples in the basket that we will have once a week to be empty by the end of the day, we will know people are eating apples and to buy more apples. Other things such as if the survey results improve from the beginning of the year to the end, or if people show up to the free breakfast and health eating competitions. All these things will tell use people are being aware of what we are doing and the change that is affecting them. We would know if our club did not bring positive change/awareness if these activities did not work. Also, another thing to mention is that if we see in the cafeteria that people started to eat healthy, we will know we made a difference. Another thing to say is that if we want to raise positive change/raise awareness in other places other than our school, we have to do different events, start internet pages, make organizations, etc.