by Marty Green ·
Friday, May 15, 2026
It’s an old stereotype that teenagers have hearty appetites, but they are also bombarded with media messages about weight and appearance. Katelyn Russell, leader of the Health and Physical Education Department at the Bromfield School, recently co-authored an article in the Journal of School Health, “Ditching Diet Talk,” about a curriculum that emphasizes healthy eating behaviors while avoiding a weight-centric approach to nutrition.
Russell’s article focuses on a weight-inclusive nutrition (WIN) program based on the idea, as stated in the introduction, that “it is possible for people of all sizes to experience individual health.” Russell uses the WIN program for eight to 12 lessons in the nutrition section of Bromfield’s required 10th-grade health course.
In an interview, Russell said she learned of the WIN program from Bromfield graduate Allison Redinger, who is now studying nutrition at the University of Vermont, where the program was developed. The university allows teachers to download the lessons for free. Russell plans to lead a session on WIN at the Massachusetts Health and Physical Education Conference in November.
A basic premise of the WIN program is that foods are not divided into “good” and “bad.” Russell says students learn to distinguish between “what we are eating for fun or pleasure, and what we are eating for nutrition.” To make that distinction, they need to understand the basic science of nutrition.
Another fundamental idea of the curriculum is health at any weight. There is not just a narrow range of healthy weight. “Weight is not an indicator of health. … Our body weight is not completely within our control, any more than our height is,” Russell said. The WIN program deals with both disordered eating and weight-based bullying in society’s contemporary diet culture. In a lesson on misinformation, students can learn to spot the marketing techniques and messages about weight and food that they may encounter on social media, such as TikTok.
Russell’s nutrition lessons also encourage students to take note of the social determinants of health. For instance, healthy foods may be hard to buy in some areas. Community-level interventions like Growing Places, an organization that began with individual gardens 25 years ago in Harvard and has grown to involve 27 towns, can help provide fresh produce to low-income families.