Integrating Food Safety Concepts into Physical Education Curricula

Abstract

Food-borne illness has been estimated to result in as many as 9000 deaths  per year in the United States and has emerged as an important concept that children must learn alongside traditional health and fitness messages. The  Center for Disease Control has identified certain strains of E. Coli,  Salmonella, Listeria, and Campylobacter bacteria as among the most serious pathogens because of the severity and estimated number of illnesses they  cause. Safe food handling practices can greatly reduce the incidence of food  borne illness and include four critical practices: (1) cleaning, washing hands and food work surfaces often, (2) preventing cross contamination, (3) cooking food that contains raw meat, fish and poultry to temperatures high enough to kill harmful bacteria, and, (4) chilling food promptly after meals. A constructivist approach to educating elementary school children, that is, including food safety concept learning as an aspect of the elementary  physical education program is suggested. Physical activities that explain the  four safe food handling practices and demonstrate the importance ofthese practices are described. These activities represent a sampling ofthe many possible movement activities that may be used to teach and reinforce food  safety concepts to children.