According to America’s Health Rankings, only 9.4 percent of adults aged 18-44 in Kentucky report eating two or more fruits and three or more vegetables daily.  Since adults (parents and caregivers) are those who are most likely selecting their family’s diets, we can assume the children in these families are also not eating the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables.

To try to improve knowledge and consumption of fruits and vegetables in children, the Nutrition Education Program (NEP) Senior Assistant of the Kenton County Cooperative Extension Service partnered with a second-grade teacher at White’s Tower Elementary School to offer nutrition education programming to the students during their science time.  The NEP Senior Assistant met with the students weekly for eight weeks and taught the students the importance of eating fruits and vegetables, the importance of washing their hands, and the importance of getting physical activity every day.  During each session, the NEP assistant led activities and offered the students a healthy snack to reinforce the topic of the day.  She encouraged the students to take a “hello bite” of the snack even if they thought they would not like it.  After the second week of class, the second-grade teacher emailed the NEP Senior Assistant to let her know she had heard from a parent.  The parent said, “This kid asked for fruit salad with his dinner.  WTG with the nutrition class!  It’s working!!! He would have never let me feed him this.”  

To teach about germs, the NEP assistant conducted an experiment to show how germs spread.  She had each child touch a slice of bread and pass it around the room and then put it into a plastic baggie; she then had each child use hand sanitizer and pass a second slice of bread around the room and placed it in a plastic baggie; a third slice of bread was put directly into a plastic baggie.  The Assistant observed the bread to see when mold would start growing.   Mold started growing at 11-12 days on the bread that the students had touched. A couple of days later, mold started growing on the untouched bread. No mold had started growing on the slice of bread that students had touched after using hand sanitizer.  The students continued to observe the mold growth until the end of school. The NEP senior assistant asked the class what the results showed. They said in unison, “You need to wash your hands before touching food!”

The teacher reiterated to the NEP senior assistant the nutrition programming was making a difference in the students’ lives.  They were asking thought-provoking questions during the sessions and between sessions, and they were writing about “healthy/unhealthy” snacks during other writing assignments.  According to a national web-based reporting system (WebNEERS), at the end of the series, 29% of the students had improved in identifying when kids should be active; 18% improved in recognizing healthy snacks; 53% had improved in recognizing dairy foods; and 71% had improved in identifying when kids need to wash their hands.  The teacher was right; the nutrition education program did make a difference!