The Pike County Cooperative Extension Office and Christ Central Training Academy have collaborated for the past three years. This year, the SNAP-Ed assistant used the Teen Cuisine curriculum with children in grades 4-8. Twelve students were enrolled.

The Teen Cuisine curriculum has a nutrition, food safety, food preparation, and physical activity component in each lesson. There are six lessons with this curriculum. Students were introduced to a healthy diet using MyPlate, they learned to properly use a knife, read a recipe, analyze food labels for healthy food choices, identify proper portion sizes, and gained basic cooking skills.

By the end of the lessons, 100% of the students improved in diet quality and food resource management. Sixty seven percent of children improved in food safety, while eighty-three percent improved in physical activity practices.

One of the students has a condition called Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE). This is a chronic, allergic inflammatory disease of the esophagus (the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach). It occurs when a type of white blood cell, the eosinophil, accumulates in the esophagus and persists despite acid-blocking medicine. This student has a feeding tube, but this does not hinder him from participating in daily activities. There are food restrictions, but with the aid of his parents, he has come a long way. 

The SNAP-Ed assistant emails the mother with every recipe she will be using at the school and the mother either confirms or lets her know what he cannot have and then the SNAP-Ed assistant looks for substitutions. They email back and forth until they get the right combination for the child. Some are easy, some, not so easy. However, with joint effort, the outcome is what is best for the child. The child’s mother is so appreciative of the work that goes into preparing a recipe that her child can enjoy just like all the other students in his class. She said, “It’s so comforting knowing that he can participate with his peers and not feel different or even left out.”