Adult Youth Workers

As you work to give young people wonderful experiences that help them learn and grow, look for opportunities to help them also make good health decisions.

Bowling Thirst Quencher

This fun activity can help reinforce for kids which drink choices are healthier than others. *

Materials

  • Plastic bowling ball and pin sets
  • May substitute 10 empty beverage containers and a plastic or rubber ball.
  • If using empty beverage containers, try to use those that represent the beverages being discussed: low-fat milk, water, sugared beverages and 100% fruit juice.

Instructions

  1. Discuss beverages we all drink every day. How much water do you drink? Sugared, carbonated sodas or pop? Other sugared drinks like fruit drinks or sport drinks? Diet drinks? Milk? Fruit juice?
  2. Which beverages should we try to drink MORE of? Which should we drink LESS of? Why? How easy is that to do?
    • Sugared sodas or pop give us empty calories, but few or none of the vitamins and minerals our bodies need.
      • If we drink sugared pop and also eat as many calories as we need in a day, we get too many calories total, which means we gain weight.
      • Sugared drinks are bad for our teeth.
    • Diet drinks don't give us extra sugar, but they also have little or no nutrient value. Often we drink them instead of healthier choices like low-fat milk or water.
    • Water is the drink of choice for maintaining a healthy body.
    • Pre-teens should have 3 servings a day of low-fat dairy like skim milk and yogurt (As recommended by MyPyramid).
    • Don't drink more than one serving of fruit juice a day. Fruit juice doesn't have the fiber that real fruit does and fruit drinks are often super-sized, giving us more calories than we can burn.
  3. Try the Bowling Thirst Quencher game to help remind you which beverages to drink MORE of and which LESS of. Bowling points earned or lost represent the beverage choices we make daily. Discuss this with the youth you work with.
    • Set up bowling pins (or beverage containers) in the normal bowling arrangement. Code each on the bottom so that for 10 pins you have:
      • 1 labeled 100% fruit juice
      • 1 labeled sugared beverage
      • 3 labeled low-fat milk
      • 4 labeled water
      • 1 labeled diet drink
    • Everybody bowls to see how well they "quench" their thirst!
      • One ball is rolled for EACH frame or turn bowling and score is kept for a given number of turns/frames.
      • The object is to get as many points as possible in a set number of frames or turns at bowling.
      • Points are scored or lost by knocking down the pins.
      • Note: Sugared beverages are MINUS points, and fruit juice is a break even!
      • Randomly code the pins and then randomly set them up each time so that the bowler does not know which pins he or she might strike and knock down.
    • Point values
      • Water: gain 2 points
      • Low-fat milk: gain 2 points
      • 100% fruit juice: break even—no gain or loss of points
      • Diet drink: lose 1 point
      • Sugared beverage: lose 5 points
    • Examples
      • A strike, knocking down all 10 pins, would add up to
        • 4 pins of water x 2 pts (8 pts)
        • 3 pins of milk x 2 pts (6pts)
        • 1 pin of fruit juice x 0 pts (0 pts)
        • 1 pin of diet drink x -1 point (minus 1 pt)
        • 1 pin of sugared beverage x -5 pts (minus 5 pts) for a total of 8 points for that frame.
      • Knocking over 2 pins of water and 1 pin of fruit juice would add up to
        • water (4 pts)
        • fruit juice (0 pts) or a total of 4 points for that frame.
  4. Print and complete the Calcium Quiz (Adobe Acrobat) from the Dairy Council web site. Use this for discussion and personal goal setting.

* Used with permission of Healthy Kids Challenge