Food Logging and Blogging Toward Healthier Nutrition: Bringing the Curriculum Out of the Classroom and Into the 21st Century

Abstract

This article focuses on the benefits of promoting lifelong, healthy eating habits within a student-centered blog. A learning community, located in an urban, northeastern section of the United States, was formed between two fifth grades from different socioeconomic backgrounds and college students enrolled in a nutrition class. Components of this unit, Food Logging and Blogging, include students’ completion and analysis of food diaries, face-to-face discussions regarding healthy eating habits, and a blog. Blogging, still a fairly new form of communication in the classroom environment, promotes engaging conversations and has increased nutrition knowledge. Advantages of blogging include authenticity with audience, transparency that gives students a platform to speak candidly, improved digital literacy savvy, and higher order thinking skills. It also offers prospective health teachers and professionals an alternative form of communication.