Using Hippocrates Principles to Give Back

As health educators, we understand the importance of starting early on the path to lifelong wellness. However, recent events have left us wondering what we can do for children who attend increasingly underfunded public schools where they learn little about being healthy, productive, contributing members of our society.

Using our Hippocrates Health Education to help the most vulnerable members of our communities—children—we have created two books: Real Kids Real Food Lesson Plans and Real Kids Real Food Kids-Tested Recipes. Our goal is to get these books, and their vital lessons, into schools and afterschool programs nationwide.

Real Kids Real Food is designed in line with the vision of the Hippocrates Wellness, healing the whole child through nutrition. The lesson plans extend beyond live food recipes to include techniques to maintain mental and emotional health and increase physical activity. We aim to help children develop responsible personal and social conduct, starting with the basics: caring for themselves, the earth, and each other.

Check out the sample lesson plan below!

Lesson Plan: How to De-stress 

Objectives:

• Learn what stress
• Understand effects of stress
• Learn how to manage stress
• Learn what to eat and what not to eat to help prevent stress

Plan for the Day

1. Exercise
2.   Mindfulness Meditation

3. Ask the kids: What is stress?

   • Act out an example of stress: One teacher will sit and pretend to do their homework at a table. Each teacher will then come up while teacher #1 is trying to concentrate. They will make noise, move around, ask him/her questions, try to clean the table teacher #1 is sitting at,
   • Break kids into groups of 4 with a teacher in each group. Help them to brainstorm 5 stressful situations and write them on the whiteboard. Have each group choose a stressful scenario without telling the other groups then act it out.

4. Ask the kids: How do you de-stress? What helps you de-stress?

   Go over the strategies to combat stress in

   • Eat healthy, real foods
   • Meditate (can use as an activity if time allows)
   • Exercise such as dancing
   • Talk it out
   • Sleep—how much sleep?

5. Prepare Together: Carob Mousse and Banana

6. Reflection

Optimum Health Solution is leading the charge in changing children’s futures one meal at a time with our books which will be available for free on Amazon Kindle April 11th - 13th 2017. This is a great chance for you to try the program for yourself! In just one hour a week over 10 weeks, you could help the children in your community learn the essential tools for healthful living they will use for the rest of their lives. If you or a program leader in your area is interested in launching Real Kids Real Food locally, please contact Betsy Bragg on her cell phone at (617) 835-2913 or by email at [email protected].