Essay contest winner’s prize is a visit from actress Ashley Judd
By: Madeleine Johnson
The library at Crossroads North Middle School isn’t usually buzzing with excitement, but it’s not often that the school is the chosen location for celebrities to talk to students about healthy living habits.
But thanks to a middle school graduate who knows how to turn writing assignments into prize-winning essays, all that changed on the morning of Oct. 11.
When Saadia Ahmad, now a freshman at South Brunswick High School, was still an eighth-grader in the Sigma Unit at Crossroads North, she took a school paper on obesity and how to combat it and entered the essay in the Teen Trends contest sponsored by American Beauty and NutritionAID. The grand prize was a $500 Kohl’s shopping spree and a visit from the organizations’ spokesperson, actress Ashley Judd, to discuss nutrition and exercise.
"I wrote an essay about childhood obesity and steps to take to prevent it," Saadia said. "It was an assignment for a personal essay that I revised and sent in."
Despite having a "passion for writing" and the abundant praises of her teachers, Saadia was still amazed that her piece was selected as the contest’s grand-prize winner in March.
"I was completely shocked," she said. "When Mrs. (Judith) Black, the principal, made the announcement over the loudspeaker that a student from our school had won the contest, I never actually thought it was me, but I had a feeling. I went lightheaded when she said I won."
On a dreary autumn day, nearly seven months after finding out that she’d won, Saadia was joined by her mother and various members of Crossroad North’s faculty as they all waited for the movie star’s grand entrance.
When Ms. Judd arrived, she was eager to talk to everyone in attendance and made sure that she and Saadia took plenty of photos together. Once Ms. Judd was finished asking about some of the library’s displays, she and Kate Roberts, a NutritionAID representative, waited as the current eighth-graders of the Sigma Unit, one of the school’s eight learning clusters, filed into the room.
"What do you think we’re going to talk about today?" Ms. Judd asked the students. Once she had talked to those who ventured a few shy guesses, Ms. Judd helped the eighth-graders understand the benefits of eating well, following a balanced meal plan and even dispelled certain health rumors.
"Who here thinks that ‘fat’ is a dirty word?" Ms. Judd asked her audience. "Your brain is made from fat. If you don’t eat fat, you literally starve your brain."
She told the students about the differences between "healthy fat and non-healthy fat," focusing on how empty carbohydrates make certain fats unhealthy.
Ms. Judd did make a point, however, of saying that there’s nothing wrong with a junk-food splurge every now and then, since "having a little bit satisfies the craving," and ignoring a craving can lead to overeating.
"I don’t deprive myself that treat," she said. "If I didn’t have it for days and days and weeks and weeks, I’ll crave it and most likely binge."
Ms. Judd reminded the students that balance, variety and moderation in their meal plans isn’t the only key to staying healthy, citing Saadia’s essay and the ways that the young writer stressed how important exercise is, too.
"Illinois is the only state that requires physical education, and it’s not even strongly enforced," Ms. Judd said, later suggesting that the nationwide lack of physical activity in children’s lives may have something to do with the fact that 15 percent of American teens are overweight.
Ms. Roberts, giving Ms. Judd a break in the presentation, held up a magazine, the cover of which was emblazoned with skinny Hollywood stars and their double-digit weights.
"What do you guys think when you see these models who are so skinny?" she asked, to which a few students responded that they thought it was "gross" that today’s famous young women are so infatuated with being thin.
Ms. Roberts and Ms. Judd talked about eating disorders, both stressing that one shouldn’t "be disgusted by the person, but the disease-related behavior" and explaining that certain emotions related to anorexia, bulimia and overeating, and that indulging in these disorders satisfies a behavioral need in some people.
Throughout the discussion, the students in attendance showed off what they had learned in their health classes by asking and answering questions that drew upon their education.
And, while they might have known quite a bit before spending an hour with a movie-star teacher, chances are that a lot of the students paid extra special attention to this lesson.

