As school counselors, our work is centered around relationships. Relationships between students, families, and teachers make up the bulk of our work. While all of these relationships are incredibly valuable, we rarely talk about our relationship with food. The way we talk about food with children can influence their relationship with food for the rest of their lives. Focusing on weight rather than health increases the likelihood of harmful eating habits in the future. The benefits of food are something we often overlook, when we are too busy daemonizing ourselves and others for the choices we make. Food is not inherently “good” or “bad”, but attaching labels to our food all too often makes it so. Challenge the food police in your head telling you that as a reward for eating the mushy broccoli you can indulge in a piece of chocolate cake. What if we served broccoli and chocolate cake on the same plate, giving them equal status? …
Winning or Learning ?
AAS recently earned LEED Gold Certification for the Rila Renaissance Centre (RRC). LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and it recognizes buildings that meet high standards for being “healthy, highly efficient, and cost-saving green buildings.” The RRC is the second AAS building to merit LEED Gold Certification. It is something the AAS community should be proud of as it highlights our commitment to sustainability. Though LEED Gold Certification is not an award, it feels like an award. This feeling got me thinking about awards. I haven’t gotten many awards in my life–I’m not sure what that says about me. When I was about 10 years old, my younger sister, Amie, and I spent a summer with family in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada. (Nelson is a wonderful city on Lake Kootenay in the Selkirk Mountains. If it is not on your travel list, it should be.) My sister and I participated in the Nelson Summer Family Olympics. It included events like the sack-race, three-legged race, and running-across-the-field-with-an-egg-on-a-spoon race….
