The Johnson County SNAP-Ed Assistant started a group at the Carl D Perkins Voc Tech Center. These adult students will be independent and living on their own after graduation. It is crucial that these adults acquire basic life skills that will help carry them through to independent living. Teaching proper nutrition to young adults is sometimes challenging due to already established bad eating habits. One of the most talked about topics was Label Reading and the importance of knowing about what is in the foods they eat. We discussed the nutrition facts, serving size, handling instructions and most importantly the ingredients. Using actual food labels, we talked about diet and health issues that could be relevant to their well-being. The lesson pointed out the importance of understanding and knowing how to read food labels. All of the students asked important questions about sugars, carbohydrates and fats, wanting to know about what and how much you should eat per serving.

 Four of the students had health issues that require them to know about what they were putting into their bodies in order to function on a healthy level. They talked about how hard it was for them to understand what they could and couldn’t eat. By covering the lesson “Reading Labels for Every Body” the students with the health concerns stated that they now had a better understanding of reading the nutritional facts on food packages. Gaining the information needed, to know how to look for the serving sizes, saturated fats, cholesterol, sodium, sugars and carbohydrates. They also said knowing what to look for on the labels gave them the confidence to shop for food on their own so they can apply it to their daily diet plan.