• Eating healthy foods is important, and these health games can help students identify which foods their body needs to function optimally.fruits closeup 2 image by .shock from Fotolia.com
  
  Many students view health class as boring without realizing that it can add so much to their understanding of how the body works. By using games in the health classroom, you can help students become more engaged in what they're learning about health and nutrition, as well as give them ways to apply learning to their own eating habits.
  
  

Sort the Foods

• Younger students may be confused about the various food groups, but this game can help. Students should look through circulars from various grocery stores and cut out some of their favorite foods. You can then help them divide a piece of paper into six squares, and then label each square with a different food group. Work with the students to place each of the cut-out pictures from the magazines into the appropriate squares.
  
  

Body Image and the Media

• Body image is one issue that many students struggle with, so it is important for them to understand the impact that the media can have on this. Have students split into groups and give each group a pile of magazines. Ask each group to estimate what percentage of the models will be thin, what percentage will be average and what percentage will be large. Each group should then guess the top three main topics of the health articles in the magazines. Have them go through the magazines and create their own chart to describe the weight of the male and female models on each page, as well as the main point of any articles related to health and nutrition. Challenge them to compare their estimates with the true content of the magazines and to summarize how close they came to the correct answers.
  
  

Nutrition Bingo

• In order to play this game, groups of students will need to collect several nutrition charts from the sides of the foods that they eat on a regular basis. Each group should place all of these charts into a large box. They should then put together a table that lists each vitamin, mineral and other nutrients, as well as the recommended amount of each.
  
  To play the game, the teacher should announce the start of each round. During each round, each group selects one chart from the box and tallies up how much of each nutrient one serving of that food has. They then add each of these amounts to the table and see which nutrients they have enough of for the day. Rounds continue until one group has filled all of the nutritional requirements for the day. Students will see how each food that they eat needs to be nutritious in order to meet the minimum requirements, and they will realize which foods are rich in various types of nutrients.