Success StoryHealthy Mom Happy Home



Healthy Mom Happy Home

Author: Patricia Nelson

Planning Unit: Spencer County CES

Major Program: Accessing Nutritious Foods (general)

Outcome: Long-Term Outcome

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education Assistant of Jefferson County Cooperative Extension Service collaborated with the Family Consumer Science teacher and taught Healthy Choices for Everybody Curriculum in 1 hour intervals for a period of 8 visits, at a local high school for young mothers and their children or young pregnant mothers.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education Assistant taught the core curriculum as well as the Feeding Every Little Body Unit to the young mothers. In the units they recognized the My Plate in the My Plate for Everybody curriculum and discussed how to make healthier choices while feeding their children.

Each time the young moms prepared and cooked recipes that were assigned to the units. Most of the recipes that they prepared had fruits or vegetables in the ingredients list. During one of the lessons, the young moms complained about adding the steamed squash to the Macaroni and Cheese Surprise recipe that they had prepared. After they tried it, everyone wanted seconds!  The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education Assistant explained the importance of eating enough variety of fruits and vegetables daily for themselves, as well as their growing children. In fact, 69 percent more often thought about healthy food choices when deciding what to feed their families and 88 percent more often used the nutrition facts on food labels to make food choices. Nine out of the twelve young mothers improved on eating more than one kind of fruit each day as well as eleven of the twelve improved in eating more vegetables. At the end of the school year, one of the young moms told the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education Assistant that she had lost several pounds since she gave up drinking regular sodas and 83 percent of the young moms had an improvement in reducing the amount of regular sodas they drank.






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