Loryn Galardi, MS is owner and president of Comprehensive Nutrition in Wilton. She is a nutritionist who focuses on optimal health and wellness through education, behavior modification and continuous personalized support. She recently spent time with the scholars at Wilton’s A Better Chance (ABC) and GOOD Morning Wilton asked her to share the experience, to show the great things that happen when the community forges new connections.
I was offered the opportunity to do a presentation for Wilton’s A Better Chance (ABC) scholars one evening a week ago. I had heard about the program over the years from my own sons while they were in high school but I knew little about it. I have spoken and presented to many people in many different venues about my passions of health and wellness as it pertains to what we eat, and I assumed this would be just another run-of-the-mill talk to high school kids about not eating too many cheese doodles or drinking too much soda. I couldn’t have been more wrong!
Residence directors Michael Gordon and Cinzia Malizia welcomed me into the boy’s house, gave me a tour and introduced me to each of the 13 boys and girls who are this year’s current scholars. I had the immediate feeling that this group was atypical of others their age and that I was not going to be talking about cheese doodles and soda. I began speaking about what I personally ate when I was in high school–sugary cereals, cookies, candy, crackers, chips, cheese doodles and soda, and related how I felt during and after school. I continued with stories of my eating in college–coffee, soda, chocolate, popcorn, pizza and ice cream, and revealed how that was the beginning of my health issues. I ended my intro with my description of all the doctors and tests I endured in my 20’s and 30’s only to be told that no one knew why I was always on feeling horrible, unable to lose the extra 30 lbs or exercise or be patient with my kids and my husband or stay awake past 6 PM. Until I relearned how to eat.
I brought each scholar a packet of handouts consisting of research and information on the dangers of excessive sugar, fat and salt, artificial sweeteners, trans fats and high fructose corn syrup. For the next hour we discussed how these ingredients are in so many of the foods we eat. I use as many visuals as I can to demonstrate the need to read labels and eat consciously. There were so many thoughtful questions and interesting insights throughout each topic.
We discussed the remaining handouts that described the necessity of combining protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats as well as the list of healthy options. They were very concerned not only with some of the foods they were eating now, but also how they would manage once they were away at college and on their own.
At the end of the two hours I challenged them with questions about food choices that we hadn’t discussed. There were prizes for those who could come up with not only the correct answers but the reasons for those answers. I was so impressed with not only the quality of their knowledge about healthy foods, but also the reasoning and critical thinking that went into getting to the correct answers. This, I thought, is our future. And it is an excitingly bright one for sure!
As I was leaving the house the kids presented me with two bags of fresh eggs, eggplant, tomatoes, carrots, peppers and a huge watermelon all grown by the boys in the garden behind their house. It is their job to tend to the hens, the corn, the veggies and the pumpkins themselves. It is not done for them. The omelet I made as soon as I got home that night was the best I had ever tasted. And that presentation was the most rewarding one I have ever given.
Loryn Galardi’s Comprehensive Nutrition website is www.loryngalardi.com. Comprehensive Nutrition is a GMW.com advertiser, but she was not compensated for her writing.