SUCCESS STORY: 
One of the goals of the Family and Consumer Sciences program is to empower families to make proactive choices. By making better choices related to their health and their families’ health, individuals will have less risk of chronic disease, spend less on health care, experience fewer sick days, and have a better quality of life. Families will increase the practice and promotion of physical activity and healthy eating on a daily basis. Participants will learn to better manage and prevent the risk, debilitation, and premature death related to diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, and hypertension. Adults and youth will learn to better manage their weight. In order to meet this goal, the Family and Consumer Sciences Agent offers nutrition educational programming. One such program is a monthly Lunch-n-Learn program which teaches participants about nutrition, food preparation, food safety, and healthy lifestyle choices. Participants watch as a recipe is demonstrated, taste the food prepared by that recipe, and discuss how to safely prepare that food. This agent is responsible for advertising, teaching, and evaluating this program. This program started as a nutrition outreach program in the Boneyville community and has grown to include people from several different counties. A total of 9 monthly programs were taught with an average of 25 -35 people per session. Participants reported that they plan to improve at least one behavior related to their eating habits. the majority of participants have not tried many of the fresh vegetables that we use in our recipes for this program.  One example was a recipe featuring brussels sprouts.  The majority of participants stated that they did not like Brussels sprouts and only attended out of curiosity.  However, after sampling the prepared recipe, almost all of them had positive things to say about it.  They found that they enjoyed the featured recipe and would now be more likely to incorporate Brussels sprouts into their own menus.  Champion Food Volunteers also assist with these programs by helping prepare food, teach the nutritional information, and demonstrate the skills necessary to prepare nutritious foods featured in that program. Overall, participants are making beneficial lifestyle choices which will positively impact their overall health. The individual, family, community, and our country are all then impacted in terms of savings related to healthier living.