“So enriched grains, because the bran and germ have been removed and only the endosperm is left, provide much less nutritional value than whole grains. Any questions?” I looked up from my notes and locked eyes with several very confused second graders, who probably would have had questions if they even knew what they had questions about.
I serve as the Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Coordinator for Clay County Youth Development. I develop nutrition lessons and games that promote physical activity for students enrolled in all of the YMCA’s elementary school programs with one goal in mind: creating the healthiest environment possible for our children. Clay County is home to 28 elementary schools, so catering to the diverse needs of each of them can be challenging. However, regardless of whether I’m communicating with children in a very suburban or distinctly rural community, I’ve learned one strategy that is absolutely vital: keeping it simple.
Coming out of academia and into AmeriCorps, I equated “professional communication” with using grandiose phraseology and ostentatiously promulgating my encyclopedic intelligence. Basically, I thought I needed to use language to impress people. After my first few wellness lessons with children, I quickly learned what should have been obvious—that this mode of communication simply doesn’t work. I realized that being an educator requires taking complicated topics and making them sound simple, not the opposite.
Many of the children that the YMCA serves come from backgrounds where health is not a priority. In their homes, they’re taught very little about nutrition and aren’t encouraged to get the exercise that their developing minds and bodies need. In many cases, the YMCA provides these children with their very first exposure to nutritional education. Thus, our ability to “keep it simple” and teach children the basic concepts of health and nutrition is vital in setting them up to live healthy lives.
Serving with the YMCA has been a huge lesson in meeting people where they are and gearing my modes of communication toward their unique needs. This is a lesson that extends far beyond educating 5-12 year olds. It’s something that I use when talking to family and friends about relevant health issues and when delivering a presentation to a room full of adults. It will also be vital in my future as a physician, when my ability to communicate complicated issues in a simple manner can be the difference between someone understanding their disease or being completely in the dark. Even though talking to people like they’re second graders isn’t always professionally appropriate, the overall theme—keeping it simple—is a lesson that I will carry with me throughout my life.
less nutritional value than whole grains. Any questions?” I looked up from my notes and locked eyes with several very confused second graders, who probably would have had questions if they even knew what they had questions about.
Many of the children that the YMCA serves come from backgrounds where health is not a priority. In their homes, they’re taught very little about nutrition and aren’t encouraged to get the exercise that their developing minds and bodies need. In many cases, the YMCA provides these children with their very first exposure to nutritional education. Thus, our ability to “keep it simple” and teach children the basic concepts of health and nutrition is vital in setting them up to live healthy lives.