Urban After-School Partnership Teaches Cooking and My Plate Nutrition

Seventeen percent of children in the U.S. are clinically obese and many more are overweight and at risk for obesity. The consequences of childhood overweight and obesity warrant greater efforts in early prevention. A key factor associated with energy intake and weight gain is consumption of foods away from home. Programs to promote eating more home-prepared foods present an encouraging area of intervention for improving children’s diet quality and diminishing childhood obesity. This study reports on an urban after-school cooking program implemented through a partnership between Rutgers Cooperative Extension and the Boys and Girls Club. Post-test measures and qualitative observations found that the program increased cooking skills and enjoyment, interest in healthy eating and exposure to healthy foods, and provided knowledge and tools to help modify students’ eating habits away from school. Partnerships between after-school providers and Cooperative Extension can provide effective programming in areas with widespread poverty and limited resources

Awareness is Power: Promoting Healthy, Mindful Eating for Trenton Middle Schoolers through an After-School Partnership

The U.S. is currently in the midst of an obesity epidemic, and the greatest hopes for progress lie in childhood obesity prevention efforts. Our understanding of the causes of obesity and the mechanisms that contribute to energy over-consumption provide numerous avenues for intervention. This study reports on a novel intervention targeting several of these avenues including nutrition knowledge, media literacy, mindless eating, and access and exposure to healthy foods. The intervention ¿ a 5-session class that included hands-on activities, group discussions, question-and-answer, short videos, and guided mindful eating exercises ¿ was delivered to a group of 5th-8th graders through a partnership with the Boys & Girls Club of Trenton. Evaluation of the program demonstrates that it improved food consumption monitoring on a distracted eating task and led to increased comprehension of nutrition facts labels, though other key outcomes were not affected. These results suggest that combining lessons on nutrition and mindful eating and partnering with local after school organizations to offer classes on healthy eating are both promising strategies for improving children¿s dietary habits and potentially reducing their risk for obesity

Urban After-School Partnership Teaches Cooking and My Plate Nutrition

Seventeen percent of children in the U.S. are clinically obese and many more are overweight and at risk for obesity. The consequences of childhood overweight and obesity warrant greater efforts in early prevention. A key factor associated with energy intake and weight gain is consumption of foods away from home. Programs to promote eating more home-prepared foods present an encouraging area of intervention for improving children’s diet quality and diminishing childhood obesity. This study reports on an urban after-school cooking program implemented through a partnership between Rutgers Cooperative Extension and the Boys and Girls Club. Post-test measures and qualitative observations found that the program increased cooking skills and enjoyment, interest in healthy eating and exposure to healthy foods, and provided knowledge and tools to help modify students’ eating habits away from school. Partnerships between after-school providers and Cooperative Extension can provide effective programming in areas with widespread poverty and limited resources

Leveraging Citizen Science for Healthier Food Environments: A Pilot Study to Evaluate Corner Stores in Camden, New Jersey

Over the last 6 years, a coordinated “healthy corner store” network has helped an increasing number of local storeowners stock healthy, affordable foods in Camden, New Jersey, a city with high rates of poverty and unemployment, and where most residents have little or no access to large food retailers. The initiative’s funders and stakeholders wanted to directly engage Camden residents in evaluating this effort to increase healthy food access. In a departure from traditional survey- or focus group-based evaluations, we used an evidence-based community-engaged citizen science research model (called Our Voice) that has been deployed in a variety of neighborhood settings to assess how different features of the built environment both affect community health and wellbeing, and empower participants to create change. Employing the Our Voice model, participants documented neighborhood features in and around Camden corner stores through geo-located photos and audio narratives. Eight adult participants who lived and/or worked in a predefined neighborhood of Camden were recruited by convenience sample and visited two corner stores participating in the healthy corner store initiative (one highly-engaged in the initiative and the other less-engaged), as well as an optional third corner store of their choosing. Facilitators then helped participants use their collected data (in total, 134 images and 96 audio recordings) to identify and prioritize issues as a group, and brainstorm and advocate for potential solutions. Three priority themes were selected by participants from the full theme list (n = 9) based on perceived importance and feasibility: healthy product selection and display, store environment, and store outdoor appearance and cleanliness. Participants devised and presented a set of action steps to community leaders, and stakeholders have begun to incorporate these ideas into plans for the future of the healthy corner store network. Key elements of healthy corner stores were identified as positive, and other priorities, such as improvements to safety, exterior facades, and physical accessibility, may find common ground with other community development initiatives in Camden. Ultimately, this pilot study demonstrated the potential of citizen science to provide a systematic and data-driven process for public health stakeholders to authentically engage community residents in program evaluation

Image_1.jpeg

<p>Over the last 6 years, a coordinated “healthy corner store” network has helped an increasing number of local storeowners stock healthy, affordable foods in Camden, New Jersey, a city with high rates of poverty and unemployment, and where most residents have little or no access to large food retailers. The initiative’s funders and stakeholders wanted to directly engage Camden residents in evaluating this effort to increase healthy food access. In a departure from traditional survey- or focus group-based evaluations, we used an evidence-based community-engaged citizen science research model (called Our Voice) that has been deployed in a variety of neighborhood settings to assess how different features of the built environment both affect community health and wellbeing, and empower participants to create change. Employing the Our Voice model, participants documented neighborhood features in and around Camden corner stores through geo-located photos and audio narratives. Eight adult participants who lived and/or worked in a predefined neighborhood of Camden were recruited by convenience sample and visited two corner stores participating in the healthy corner store initiative (one highly-engaged in the initiative and the other less-engaged), as well as an optional third corner store of their choosing. Facilitators then helped participants use their collected data (in total, 134 images and 96 audio recordings) to identify and prioritize issues as a group, and brainstorm and advocate for potential solutions. Three priority themes were selected by participants from the full theme list (n = 9) based on perceived importance and feasibility: healthy product selection and display, store environment, and store outdoor appearance and cleanliness. Participants devised and presented a set of action steps to community leaders, and stakeholders have begun to incorporate these ideas into plans for the future of the healthy corner store network. Key elements of healthy corner stores were identified as positive, and other priorities, such as improvements to safety, exterior facades, and physical accessibility, may find common ground with other community development initiatives in Camden. Ultimately, this pilot study demonstrated the potential of citizen science to provide a systematic and data-driven process for public health stakeholders to authentically engage community residents in program evaluation.</p