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Low

Cost

Elementary 

School-Oriented

Middle 

School-Oriented

Minimal

Effort

Healthy competition is just the ticket to get students excited about eating more fruits and vegetables. 

Objective

Students become more aware of their current eating habits through self-monitoring and are encouraged to set goals for 

sustained healthy eating. 

The Event

Students team up by class and record the fruits and vegetables they eat over the course of 2 weeks. Classrooms challenge 

one another to see which class eats the most or the widest variety of fruits and vegetables. Students in each class brainstorm 

ways to achieve the class goal. For example, how can they eat more fruit at breakfast? Also, the activity can be adapted to 

have children track what they consume from the dairy or grain groups (with an emphasis on whole grains). 

Students can reflect upon their experience in the competition through a journaling activity. At the end of the first week, 

students can examine how their eating habits changed and share tips with one another about how to make even more healthy 

food choices during the second week of the competition. At the end of the competition, all classes can attend a celebration. 

The top teams can receive nonfood prizes and all students can share their experiences with unfamiliar fruits and vegetables 

during the event.

Planning

Plan your calendar. Decide when and how long students will track what they eat. A 2-week period is suggested to keep 

students’ attention and help them learn new habits. If possible, tie the competition to existing calendar events (for example, 

by linking the event to New Year’s resolutions in January).

Get teachers on board. This event can be linked to core course content in a variety of subjects. For instance, tabulating, 

comparing, and analyzing the class data can be linked to math; discussing the benefits of the healthy food choices students 

are making can be tied to health or science; and summarizing and reporting findings can be connected to English and language 

arts. Refer to the following section for several Team Nutrition classroom lessons involving similar self-monitoring activities linked to 

educational standards.

Choose your recording tracker and pass it out. Consider using an existing tracker (i.e., a simplified method of recording 

what you eat) or develop your own. Students can track their choices at lunch or breakfast, since school meal programs help 

make healthy choices accessible for students at these times. Some existing trackers include:

•	

•	

•	

•	

Fruit and Veggie Detective Challenge Tracker (Student Handout 6.2) for third and fourth grades in The Great Garden 

Detective Adventure (see appendix, page 97). 

Fuel Up With Veggies...and Zoom to the Finish! (Lesson 4 Handout) for fifth and sixth grades in Dig In! (see appendix, page 

95).

Reaching Produce Peak tracker for seventh grade in Nutrition Voyage: The Quest To Be Our Best (see appendix, page 95).

Older students may be interested in using the online MyPlate Super Tracker (see appendix, page 97) to record their 

food intake.
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Planning (cont’d)

Reflect on the experience. At the end of the first week, students can examine their trackers to see where they made healthy 

food choices and where there are opportunities to add more fruits and vegetables in their diet during the second week. As 

part of English and language arts, ask students to write a journal entry about their experience at the end of week 1. Students 

can review whether they met their goals or tried new foods as a part of the activity, and talk about any challenges they faced. 

Ask students to identify strategies to overcome these challenges in week 2. At the end of week 2, students can again reflect 

on their progress and set new goals for the future or establish ways to maintain their improved eating habits.

Select the winners and celebrate. During each week of the competition, compile the team members’ trackers and determine 

each student’s and team’s fruit and vegetable total. At the end of the competition, determine the winning class and hold 

a celebration. At the celebration, give nonfood prizes to the top teams and ask participants to talk about one unfamiliar fruit or 

vegetable they tried. 

School

•	

•	

Announce participating classrooms to the school via the public address system. During the 

challenge, provide tips on how to eat more fruits and vegetables (or dairy foods or whole 

grains) each day.

Ask teachers, school nutrition staff, and principals to participate in the challenge along with 

the students. Middle schools can provide staff with Healthier Middle Schools: Everyone Can 

Help materials (see appendix, page 98), which encourage healthy role-modeling behaviors.

Classroom

•	

•	

Record students’ progress as a class and strategize ways to reach their goals.

Teach lessons associated with the trackers listed under the Planning section (see appendix 

for more information about Dig In!, The Great Garden Detective Adventure and Nutrition 

Voyage curricula, page 95). 

Cafeteria

•	

•	

•	

•	

Coordinate with the school nutrition director to include encouraging messages about the 

challenge on the school lunch menu.

Highlight fruits and vegetables on the menu. 

Display the It’s Launch Time fruit and vegetable poster and Make Half Your Plate Fruits and 

Vegetables poster, if hosting the event at an elementary school (see appendix, page 96). 

Display the Power Up! fruit and vegetable game poster, if hosting the event at a middle 

school (see appendix, page 96).

Community

•	

•	

Request donations, such as nonfood prizes, from community retailers for your celebrations.

Ask local public figures, such as the mayor, to participate with students in the challenge.
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Team Up for Success (cont’d)

Media 

•	 Include a “Can’t Beat How I Eat” recurring feature in the school newspaper or blog 

that spotlights students participating in the competition. The feature can highlight the 

students’ success in the competition and share tips for readers looking to improve 

their own eating habits. 

Home

•	

•	

Send a letter to students’ families (see appendix, page 90) explaining the competition, and 

provide families with a copy of the tracker used by students to encourage family members 

to participate in the challenge. 

Middle schools can also provide families with the Healthier Middle Schools: Everyone Can 

Help parent materials (see appendix, page 98).

Students at Wakarusa Elementary School in Wakarusa, IN, completed 

weekly trackers for a month, noting their healthy food choices and physical 

activity. They completed trackers at home and turned them in to their 

teachers each Monday. To accompany the activity, the school made 

morning announcements featuring health tips, physical activity ideas, 

and suggestions for healthy food choices. The school also hosted food 

demonstrations featuring two recipes that involved apples (apple cinnamon 

breakfast quesadillas and apple-cranberry smoothies), and students were 

given apples to take home for a snack. At the end of each week, students 

reviewed their trackers to identify where they made healthy food choices and 

where they had room for improvement.

In Dodge City, KS, schools competed to see which teams could eat 

the most fruits and vegetables, as well as be more physically active. Each 

school had a team captain who tracked the school’s progress and reported back to the district. During the competition, teams 

ate more than 3 tons of fruits and vegetables and walked more than 25,000 miles. In addition to receiving prizes of fresh fruit 

and vegetable trays, participants reported feeling more energetic and positive. Students weren’t the only ones to take the 

challenge – 425 staff members participated in the competition and lost a collective 842 pounds!

Eighth-grade students at Sequoyah Middle School in Doraville, GA, participated in a “Can You Eat Better Than a Grade 

Schooler?” challenge. During the 2-week competition, students in health education class learned about MyPlate and 

the variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain-rich foods offered in school meals. Students kept journals to record the 

vegetables and grains they ate and how long they spent staying active each day. Challenge participants were recognized 

at a ceremony during annual Field Day activities.

[Photo] A Wakarusa Elementary School 

student enjoys an apple-cranberry smoothie.