You may find it useful to read the Different diets factsheet before this session as it provides information about different diets.
Explain to the children that you will be discussing the types of food people eat and the reasons for their choices. Ask the children to consider their family members who do and do not live with them and the food and drinks they consume.
Ask the children to share what various family members eat and note their responses on the board.
When you have collected a selection of answers, look at each one and ask the children to suggest the reasons their family members might choose these foods.
For example:
- My grandad eats banana sandwiches for lunch sometimes because they are easy to make and give him one of his 5 A DAY. (Ease and health.)
- My brother likes peaches. (Preference.)
- My aunty doesn’t eat meat or fish because she is vegetarian. (Ethical.)
- My sister doesn’t eat dairy foods because she has a lactose intolerance. (Medical.)
- My dad takes a sandwich to work for his breakfast because he doesn’t have time to have breakfast at home in the morning. (Time.)
- My granny doesn’t eat beef because she is a Hindu. (Religion.)
Ask children if they have heard the word ‘diet’ before and if they can explain what it means. Explain that the word ‘diet’ means all the food and drink we consume. Give some examples of the word in context, e.g. we are encouraged to have a ‘healthy diet’, a ‘vegetarian diet’ is one without meat or fish, a person with an intolerance to lactose might follow a ‘diary-free diet’. The children may have heard the term ‘diet’ used in relation to people trying to lose weight, explain that this is a ‘weight loss diet’.
Explain to the children that they are going to research different diets in pairs or small groups and create a booklet to present their findings.
Task the children to create a booklet with the What people eat and why worksheet. You may wish to allocate different diets or categories to different pairs or groups. These may include diets related to:
- Religion, e.g. Islam, Judaism;
- Climate, e.g. hot, dry or cold countries;
- Preference, e.g. likes and dislikes;
- Culture, e.g. Japanese, Afro-Caribbean.
The children can use books or the internet to create their booklet about their allocated diet.
When the children have completed the task, ask them to share their findings.
Conclude the session by recapping the key features of a few different diets and the reasons they may be followed (food availability, preferences, time, culture, religion).
