PROFESSIONAL
FACS Spotlight: Meet the Author Roberta Larson Duyff
As a registered dietitian, author, media spokesperson, and food industry/government consultant, Roberta Larson Duyff is an authority on "the power of positive nutrition." Beginning her career in home economics education, she holds a Masters of Sciences in nutrition and education from Cornell University and a bachelor's from University of Illinois. Roberta is well-versed on the strategies that FACS teachers must use to help empower students of all ages with food and nutrition information to make wise food decisions. Finally, as author of a wide variety of magazine articles, consumer guidebooks, curricula, and textbooks, including Glencoe's Food, Nutrition & Wellness, Roberta demonstrates the knowledge that comes with devoting one's life to educating others on the role of nutrition in health and overall well-being.
We sat down with Roberta to discuss the ways in which she expanded upon her own prior work to write Food, Nutrition & Wellness, and how today's raised ante on academic integration requirements helped to mold the book's comprehensive content.
Q: How does Glencoe's Food, Nutrition & Wellness differ from other previous textbooks on the topic?
A: This book reflects current perspectives for food and nutrition now. Food, Nutrition & Wellness' strong pedagogy builds on the concept that a solid food and nutrition education not only includes teaching kids how to make good food choices, how to shop wisely, and how to store, prepare, and serve healthful meals, the text also integrates the most current science-based nutrition and active living principles and guidelines throughout its chapters. For example, it focuses on recent Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid; healthy weight from a teen perspective; food safety issues; issues that matter to many teens such as eating for athletes, being a vegetarian, and fast food; the value of togetherness at the dinner table; and doable ways to do this without sacrificing fun things like dessert and after-school snacks! Perhaps the biggest difference between this book and previous texts is the focus on academic skills.
Science in Action features help bring academic and real-world relevance to food topics in Food, Nutrition & Wellness.
Q: What role does academics play today in the FACS world?
A: Academic classes teach the academic skills, and FACS classes can teach how to apply them. Doing is, after all, how we learn best. In Food, Nutrition & Wellness, when we talk about food costs, weights and measurements in recipes, and totaling nutrient and calorie intake, we're doing math. Food storage and cooking temperatures for safety's sake, digestion and metabolism, and chemical reactions as food is handled and prepared, relate to science. Food systems within societies, which include agriculture, the food industry, distribution, supply and demand, and the impact of food on the environment, all relate to social studies, as do socio-cultural influences on food choices. Reading recipes, being media literate with food ads and nutrition information, and learning about food marketing all require English language skills. These real world activities provide students opportunities to connect academics to the instruction in your classes. The book accomplishes true academic integration throughout.
Q: Today's FACS teachers are required to integrate academics to meet Perkins and NCLB goals, to support success on standardized tests, and to receive Perkins IV and other funding. How does Glencoe help to address that reality?
A: When teachers are using this program to teach, they can document the academic standards from the book chapters and related lessons right on the board for students and other educators to see. By showing how food and nutrition instruction fits academic standards, today's teachers help ensure their programs are kept within the school's academic curriculum. We decided to include the actual academic standard for each of the major areas of study on the opening page of each chapter and at the point of use throughout the chapter.
Q: Helping students establish relationships with their communities is so important. How do you achieve a community connection within the material?
A: Teachers will find real world skills throughout the book and features at the end of each chapter. Unit Thematic Projects involve students in community activities, whether at the local level, such as planting a community garden, or on a global scale, such as getting involved with environmental causes. Career features in each chapter illustrate how teens can turn their interests and activities into jobs that contribute to society.
Roberta Larson Duyff's author credits include American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide (now in its third edition, 2006), 365 Days of Healthy Eating, and Food Folklore: Truths and Myths Behind the Foods We Eat. She has also authored many nutrition curricula for USDA's Team Nutrition, including Power of Choice and curriculum to teach MyPyramid, Dietary Guidelines, and food labeling.
