Kids in the Hall

Today I got to talk to seniors in high school about nutrition. Actually I ended up talking to them about nutrition and traveling. The whole thing went even better than I expected. The teacher was my phys ed and health class teacher back in the day. Over 10 years ago. Craziness. It was fun to go back to my old stomping grounds though for sure. Telling kids that I'm in grade 24 always gets me the funniest looks. I think the young people were boggled when I told them how much our country spends on obesity related health care costs each year. Their guesses were $30-100 million, when in fact it's somewhere over $75 billion. BILLION! Their nutrition questions were all very genuine. We had a great discussion about fruits and vegetables. They were also curious about things like snacks before sports practice, acai berry, and soda vs. juice. Several of them like to cook which made me happy! Maybe one will be a dietitian some day! They were the cutest when they were asking me about traveling. They wanted to know about foods I've eaten, how I dealt with language barriers, and the best was when a really quiet kid asked if I got homesick. Heck yeah, I used to get crazy homesick! Ah, the joys of youth. To think back when I was their age I happily exercised 5 hours a day or more and still managed to make it through an 8 hour school day. Not sure how that worked. No way I could do that now!