Nutrition

Greater physical stamina, better concentration at school or work, a more efficient metabolism-the evidence is overwhelming that a healthy breakfast is the key to a productive day. Yet it's the meal most likely to be skipped by children, teenagers, and adults alike. This video brings home the importance of the day's first meal by exploring the numerous mental and physical benefits of a nutritious breakfast. Viewers will understand the relationship between eating and metabolism, specifically between breakfast and blood-sugar levels. The kinds of foods that best fuel the body in the morning are also listed. A viewable/printable instructor's guide is available online. Correlates to the National Health Education Standards and the National Standards for Family and Consumer Sciences Education. A Meridian Production. (21 minutes)

Every year, a new diet fad offers fresh hope to the overweight. But when the weight returns or refuses to budge, millions of hapless consumers simply jump on the next diet bandwagon. This documentary explores the machinations of media and diet empires that have fed, and continue to feed, off the Western obsession with slim and trim. With a fascinating historical overview of fad dieting, including the meteoric rise of Dr. Robert Atkins, the program looks at the marketing ingredients that go into a successful fad diet and follows one Atkins wannabe and his PR allies as they create the buzz needed for a successful product launch. Strategies undertaken by food companies to cash in on this phenomenon are also studied. Original CBC broadcast title: Diet Confidential. (46 minutes)

Ultra thin models, skinny sitcom stars, and overdeveloped muscle men are the images that constantly bombard young teens, promoting the unrealistic aesthetic to which they aspire. At the other end of the spectrum is an increased rate of obesity in our nations children. Copyright 2004.

Eating for optimal health can be a formidable task-especially during the teens and twenties, when metabolic changes, new social situations, and more challenging responsibilities can turn life upside down. In this program, young adults discuss the diverse elements that go into making healthy food choices. Topics include the components of a balanced diet, how to interpret food labels, and how to recognize and overcome barriers to healthy eating. (30 minutes)

This program describes how the combination of the five food groups provides the human body with those elements essential for its proper functioning, how vitamins contribute to the growth and health of the human body, and why vitamins must be ingested. Finally, the program stresses the importance of good nutrition in maintaining good health and the energy levels necessary to successful living. (23 minutes)

Whether your students realize it or not, consistently good nutrition can improve...well, basically everything. Use this outstanding four-part series to show them how eating healthy can help them get to where they want to go in life-and feel great getting there. Viewable/printable instructor's guides are available online. Correlates to all applicable state and national standards. A Meridian Production. Recommended for middle school and high school. 4-part series, 21-25 minutes each.

Consumers spend millions of dollars trying to lose extra pounds through pills, extreme weight-loss programs, and even surgery when there's only ONE rule that applies: You must burn more calories than you eat." In this video, nutrition experts identify several of the more popular fad diets and why they're so appealing. Fad diets often do work-in the short term; but in the long term, they do not offer healthy weight maintenance. This relevant program not only clarifies the dangers and frustrations of fad diets, but also offers suggestions to help you make the transition to healthier eating habits...habits that will result in healthy weight loss and a lifetime of learning how to maintain your ideal weight. A Meridian Production.One 16-minute video."

Humans used to get their food directly from natural sources. Today, however, a great deal of what we eat is not only processed, it is manufactured. Many complex steps lie between what grows and what reaches the table. This program tells us about cheese-making and shows new ways of preserving food, extending its freshness. It also discusses the effects of cholesterol on health. (23 minutes)

The maxim You are what you eat" could have originated with a few hungry self-experimenters who proved that nutrition is critical to good health. As this program illustrates, one of the most prominent of these scientists was Dr. Joseph Goldberger, an early-20th-century researcher who ate the feces and scabs from patients with pellagra in his quest to prove it was not infectious. Viewers will learn how, when the medical establishment ignored his findings, Goldberger went on to inject himself and his devoted wife with the blood of a woman dying with pellagra, in order to make his point and establish diet as a critical factor in health and medical care. A BBCW Production. (51 minutes)"

This collection of 16 video clips (1 minute to 2 minutes 30 seconds each) takes a close look at nutrition and obesity. Topics range from the benefits of organic farming, to similarities between hunger and drug cravings, to links between vegetables and healthy vision, nutrients and memory, genes and body fat storage, and race and hereditary conditions. Video clips include... Nutrition • Purely Organic • Food Cravings • Nonfattening Sweeteners • Food for Your Eyes • Vitamin A and Learning • Addicted to Food Obesity • No Anti-fat Bullet • Infectious Obesity • Obesity and the Brain • Obesity and Neurology • Your Brain on Food • Ancestry and Obesity • Couch Potatoes • Fat Food Fables • Big Belly Genes • Gene Therapy and Obesity (24 minutes)

In this program, ABC News correspondent Arnold Diaz reports on the potential dangers of dietary supplements. Pharmacologist and radio host Joe Graedon; Tod Cooperman, president of ConsumerLab.com; and David Seckman, executive director of the National Nutritional Foods Association, speak out about misleading labeling, the need for governmental regulation, and the popular misperception among consumers that supplements such as chondroitin, SAM-e, ginseng, ginkgo biloba, and St. John's wort are harmless. The bottom line? Herbals have medicinal qualities, so safe use requires that dosage levels and possible interactions with pharmaceuticals be strictly taken into account. (14 minutes)

Help students turn their good dietary intentions into healthy action! Inform and inspire them with these 12 nutrition-oriented videos and posters. Products include: • Eating Right, Day and Night (Breakfast: Most Important Meal of the Day; Let's Do Lunch; Snack Attack!; What's for Dinner?) • Junk Food Wars • Diet and Disease in Modern Society • Savor the Spectrum! Poster Set (9 A Day" Every Day-An Overview; Blue/Purple Fruits and Vegetables; Green Fruits and Vegetables; White Fruits and Vegetables; Yellow/Orange Fruits and Vegetables; Red Fruits and Vegetables) Six full-length videos and six posters. (c) 2006."

Filmed under the watchful eyes of a team of researchers, this program scientifically tracks the physical and psychological changes in seven volunteers—three men and four women, ranging in age from 21 to 34—as they drink with their friends in a bar. Vital information is provided on alcohol’s impact on the body, the worthlessness of inebriation remedies such as cold showers and coffee, the very present danger of alcohol poisoning, and genetic inputs for alcohol addiction. In addition, outstanding 3-D computer graphics illustrate alcohol’s effects on the brain, stomach, heart, liver, and genitals. A police sobriety test is demonstrated. A Discovery Channel Production. (51 minutes)

We want more, and make it quick!" That's the message the food industry is hearing as it scrambles to keep up with consumer demand. Some innovations have proved successful, but others-especially in the areas of mass production and automated processing-have opened the door to dangerous contamination. That's why this timely three-part series is so valuable. It explains the risks and possible remedies in a lively yet level-headed way, to help students replace their fears with facts. A viewable/printable instructor's guide for the series is available online. Correlates to the Health National Standards from the Joint Committee for National School Health Education and the American Cancer Society and the National Content Standards for Health according to the American School Health Association. A Cambridge Educational Production. 3-part series, 17-19 minutes each."

If taste were a reliable guide to a nutritious diet, candy and soda would be two food groups vital to good health-but it's not. That's why this video takes a scientific look at dietary nutrients, explaining what they are, why the body needs them, and how they work with each other to produce energy, stimulate growth, repair and maintain hard and soft tissues, and regulate bodily processes. Metabolism, energy yield from different food types, the composition and role of blood, key vitamins and minerals, dietary fiber, and recommended daily allowances are only a few of the topics covered in this detailed overview of the biochemistry of nutrition. The impact of nutritional deficiencies on short- and long-term health is also discussed. A viewable/printable instructor's guide is available online. Correlates to National Science Education Standards and National Health Education Standards. A Meridian Production. (21 minutes)