The impact of a balanced diet
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can describe the impact of diet on the human body.
Key learning points
- Diet is the type and range of food that you eat regularly.
- Eating food with essential nutrients is important for good health, growth and development.
- The foods we choose to eat can have an impact on how our bodies function.
- Balanced diets can lower chances of developing chronic diseases.
Keywords
Diet - A diet is the sort of food animals including humans eat regularly.
Impact - The impact of something is the effect it has.
Nutrients - A nutrient is any substance that plants or animals need in order to live or grow.
Beneficial - Something beneficial is something that is good; it results in benefits.
Common misconception
Pupils may think that the word ‘diet’ refers to ‘going on a diet’ and lowering calorie intake or restricting intake of fats or sugars, and in turn think that this constitutes a ‘healthy’ diet.
Explain that the word ‘diet’ means the things that we eat regularly, and that a balanced diet is made up of a balanced intake of different types of foods.
Teacher tip
Pupils could explore the weekly school dinner menu and think about which choices they could make to ensure their diet is balanced and includes a good range of foods of each different type. This lesson contains a diagnostic question on slide 23-24 - see additional materials for further guidance.
Equipment
none required
Content guidance
Depiction or discussion of sensitive content
Depiction or discussion of violence or suffering
Supervision
Adult supervision required
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.A balanced diet is beneficial to our health. What does beneficial mean?
Q2.If something is essential, it is…
Q3.Which statement about nutrients is incorrect?
Q4.Which system in the body is responsible for breaking down the food we eat and absorbing important nutrients?
Q5.Which body system is responsible for transporting oxygen and nutrients around the body in the blood?
Q6.Starting with food being chewed in the mouth, put the stages of digestion into the correct order.
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Match the food groups to the types of food that is a good source of each.
milk, cheese, yogurt
lentils, eggs, beef
pasta, rice, bread
olive oil, butter
carrots, lettuce, tomatoes
Q2.A person’s is all of the different types of food that they eat regularly.
Q3.Eating foods that contain essential is important for good health, growth and development.
Q4.Why is it important to eat a balanced diet?
Q5.A balanced diet in childhood can lead to…
Q6.Which of these diets would be beneficial to your health?
To help you plan your 6 science lesson on: The impact of a balanced diet, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 6 science lesson on: The impact of a balanced diet, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 2 science lessons from the Keeping healthy unit, dive into the full primary science curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.