Go, Slow, Woah (Nutrition Activity for Kids)

A nutrition activity to teach eating guidelines to kids.

Setting boundaries and guidelines for kids eating is an important part of raising them. In our food culture, it’s too easy to believe that all the food is OK, any time you want it. Today’s kids are at a disadvantage if they don’t learn to navigate our food environment. Food today is highly palatable, easily accessible, and always available.


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This is why I love this nutrition activity, Go, Slow, and Woah. In addition to teaching kids lessons about portion control, it’s also important to teach them to recognize which foods are “all the time foods”, vs. “sometimes foods.”

The definitions for this nutrition activity are:

  • {GO} to eat any time
  • {SLOW} which foods to eat sometimes, or less often
  • {WOAH} and which foods to only eat once in a while or on special occasions

I’ve been thinking about sharing this idea for awhile, but I wanted some play food and little baskets. I was browsing the toy department at Walmart I stumbled on a basket of play food for only $5.96!

I also grabbed three little baskets from the kitchen organizer aisle, and some tags from the office supplies.

Playing the nutrition activity/game:

The game is simple! Go “shopping” with your kids and let them sort the food into the baskets of Go, slow, and woah! You can use real food, fake food, or photos and pictures of food. I added some real food to my fake food to really drive home the idea.

This download gives a great list of go, slow, and woah foods.

go, slow, and woah nutrition activity for kids

“We Can” also has a huge deck of flash cards you can print if you want to do a paper version of this activity, and not use play food or real food. That 99 page slide deck is here.

Another resource I found that I loved was this tagline from Touch

Use the light to eat right!

Touch

In the Touch Article, they describe which foods are appropriate for different baskets.

GO foods Whole foods, the least processed, low in salt, added sugars, etc. Included here, fruits vegetables and whole grains.

SLOW foods are in between GO and WHOA foods and include refined grains and fruit with added sugars.

WHOA foods are the most processed and high in added sugars. Candy, cookies, chips, fast food, fried foods, ice cream, soft drinks and sugary cereals.

This lesson of course applies not just for kids, but it’s helpful to make choices for adults as well. Give this nutrition activity a try, and let me know how it goes!


Get lesson plan here.

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