The theme of the project "Healthy lifestyle and bad eating habits in teenagers" concerns the delicate food problem of teenagers, their poor/wrong eating habits and related problems. They eat too much unhealthy food, which is very fatty and drink too many sugary drinks: this leads to obesity. Nowadays young people, especially girls, allow themselves to grow fat, or torture themselves with diets: this leads to various diseases linked to eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia. Teenagers need a balanced diet, appropriate personal hygiene and physical activities in the open air, for example, playing games, going running, swimming, riding bicycles, playing tennis or walking help them to keep fit. It is crucial to regulate and control the quality and amount of food they eat, but only in a reasonable way, and possibly after the consultation with the dietician, if necessary. Young people have to remember that a healthy lifestyle requires appropriate nourishment but they also must not forget the important role of physical activities. The partnership will involve 5 European Secondary Schools: Italy as school coordinator, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia. Italy: experiences with international projects, students from different social strata in a small province. Lithuania: experiences with international projects, students from a rural background and often in families with low income, sometimes financially supported by local authorities. Portugal: experiences with international projects, students ususally coming from families with low socioeconomic status. Poland: involved in previous Comenius projects, students with special needs, numerous initiatives aimed at helping disadvantaged individuals and families. Slovakia: vocational secondary school with experience in Comenius, students with economic and geographical disadvantages. One of the cross curricular themes in their school is multiculturalism. The number of the participants is approximately 10000 The acronym CH-E@TING of the project can be read and interpreted in several ways: CH = can refer to chemicals from food or to carbohydrates. E = is the symbol for internet explorer @ = is the symbol for internet , e-mail address. T = is for time, because people are always in a hurry and they don't have the time to cook proper food. I = is for information, the objective of our project, i.e. to inform people about healthy and unhealthy food N = is for nutrition G = is for growth – we refer to alternatives people have such as growing their own vegetables and ways of cooking them. And finally it can be read as CHEATING because we cheat ourselves every day when it comes to food and even if we know that something is not good for our health we still eat it because it is tasty- i.e. sweets, cakes and the effects they can have on our diet if consumed in big quantities are seriously dangerous. Intentions and objectives for this European cooperation are: -Becoming aware of our body and the connection between this and our psyche ("Mens sana in corpore sano" A healthy mind in a healthy body); -Becoming aware of the importance of a healthy diet. -Developing knowledge and understanding among young people and educational staff of the diversity of European cultures and languages and their value -Helping young people acquire the basic life skills and competences necessary for their personal development, for future employment and for active European citizenship -Encouraging the learning of modern foreign languages -Enhancing students ability in using ICT and supporting the development of innovative communication tools -Creating the Knowledge of our common roots with European community countries -Improving the quality and quantity of the volume of mobility of educational staff and pupils -Enhancing the Learning and the Methodology in the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)- -Developing, promoting and disseminating new and innovative educational materials and new teaching methods- -Developing, promoting and disseminating new and innovative teacher training courses or course content. Both students and teachers will work together and communicate in the area of the virtual learning environment, in a teachers/students forum and chat sessions, to share ideas, opinions, images, photos, their own results. All materials produced during the project will be published in our school website and in our blog ( students themselves may create the blog), diffused in school and if possible in local communities and the wider European Erasmus + programmes (EST) . Our students will work in mixed international groups on several tasks, this way all participants will have a meaningful cooperation, which will be strengthened during the central meetings. The activities are implemented in order to raise students' self-awareness of a correct healthy diet among them as well as an improvement of their communicative skills in English.
The goal of the project was to make students aware of the most common eating disorders among teens in order to prevent illnesses associated with wrong eating habits. Our aim was to promote healthy lifestyles, through positive eating habits, fostering new models of education through food culture, arts and sports. Besides we intended to make the students acquire more specific competences in the field of nutrition, through an informative campain against misinformation in the food labels and packaging,The schools involved had similar age groups but different cultural backgrounds, belonging to several specific cultures, thus they had different lifestyles and various eating habits. However, one aspect was common to modern teenagers. Frequently they had wrong eating habits and followed unhealthy diets, too rich in fats for their age. The partnership involved 5 European Secondary Schools: Italy as school coordinator, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia. Italy: experiences with international projects, students from different social strata in a small province; Lithuania: experiences with international projects, students from a rural background and often in families with low income; Portugal: experiences with international projects, students usually coming from families with low socio-economic status; Poland: involved in previous Comenius projects, students with special needs, numerous initiatives aimed at helping disadvantaged individuals and families; Slovakia: vocational secondary school with experience in Comenius, students with economic and geographical disadvantages. All INTENTIONS and OBJECTIVES have been accomplished successfully and they were: 1 Becoming aware of our body and the connection between this and our psyche ("Mens sana in corpore sano" A healthy mind in a healthy body);2 Becoming aware of the importance of a healthy diet;3 Developing knowledge and understanding of the diversity of European cultures and languages and their value;4 Helping young people acquire the basic life skills and competences for their personal development;5 Encouraging the learning of modern foreign languages;6 Enhancing students ability in ICT and the development of innovative communication tools;7 Creating the Knowledge of our common roots with European countries;8 Improving the quality and quantity of the mobility of staff and pupils;9 Enhancing the Learning and the Methodology in CLIL;10 Developing, promoting and disseminating innovative materials and new teaching methods;11 Developing, promoting and disseminating innovative teacher training courses. DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES: 1. Preparation – project management was set up, students were selected in each school partner through a motivational questionnaire and project workshops held in each school. Creation of the project blog+ logo, chosen through a competition among the different schools and maintained by the coordinator school: https://healthyteens.eu; 2. There were 3 transnational project meetings in Isernia( Italy), in Agueda( Portugal) and in Bratislava, (Slovakia) for only coordinators and teachers to discuss management issues, to visit lessons and to plan how good practices could be integrated into programmes of partner schools;3. We organized 5 (LTTA) short-term exchanges of students in Bratislava, Slovakia; in Mazeikiai, Lithuania; in Kraków, Poland; in Agueda, Portugal and in Isernia, Italy, where both teachers and students took part in the extra-curricular, education activities of the host school; 4. Results: art cookery book, unit calorie disc, T-shirts and caps, Geographical Map of Food, booklet of Easter traditions,Photo competition, relay story,videos Youth Passes, Erasmus Album. METHODOLOGY: Workshops between students, working in groups or pairs. Presentations, films, sharing information. Students' reports to their peers. Learning by doing, i.e. students worked in transnational groups, took part in interactive workshops, discussions and study visits to local factories and to the nearby cities and its landmarks. RESULTS AND IMPACT: 1. Project website for the dissemination of results; 2. Impact on partner schools - the project has enhanced their extracurricular programmes with non formal methods;3. Impact on participating teachers: development of motivation, attitude, professional skills, English and ICT competences;4. Impact on participating students: learning a Healthy lifestyle,critical thinking, communicative skills in English, social, civic and intercultural competences. LONG TERM BENEFITS: Students, as responsible Healthy Teens, actively will contribute to spread the results, experiences, products and good practices in the participating organisations, in the local communities and in the wider lifelong learning community. All materials are available on our school website, on the blog of the project and on the European Erasmus + Results Platform.