Impact Statement for last quarter 2018 

Montgomery County  

April Crouch, SNAP-Ed/Nutrition Assistant 

Kentucky State University’s Nutrition Education Program 2018 annual report cited an estimated one in three youth residents in this country are overweight or obese based upon research from the American heart association. Many school districts have experienced budget cuts as well in the last several years. The cuts have reduced the number of programs available to students on basic skills such as healthy meal planning, shopping with a list and budgeting. In an effort to fill the gap created by program reductions in schools and to help raise a generation of healthier kids, SNAP-Ed partners with many schools in the Kentucky State University service area to offer healthy activities, cooking skills, and nutrition education programs to children and adolescents. The goal of SNAP-Ed is to provide this type of education so that people understand nutrition and make healthier food choices. These decisions will reduce rates of diabetes and heart disease, two key killers in today’s society. 

           Kentucky State University Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program Education (SNAP/Ed) Area Assistant partnered with Montgomery County elementary schools to provide nutrition education to the first and second grade classes.   The goal of this partnership is to improve the eating habits of the Montgomery County youth, to help prevent obesity and decrease health risk associated with obesity.  The OrganWise curriculum mainly focuses on early childhood with fun learning stories, activities and healthy food sampling. The stories and activities teach the children how to be healthy from the inside out. Making them aware of how healthy eating and physical activities affect their bodies on the inside and outside. It provided the youth with information that they could take home and share with their families and friends. There were twenty four first grade classes and twenty four second grade classes. Each class lasted forty five minutes per class.  The nutrition lessons were taught to approximately one hundred and sixty elementary school students on the concepts of MyPlate, variety, balance and moderation, and the importance of physical activity using OrganWise curriculum taught by SNAP-Ed/Nutrition Assistant, April Crouch.  The classes were conducted in the classroom at two of the elementary schools in Montgomery County. The students learned names and locations of their organs inside their bodies, the functions of each organ and how healthy eating versus unhealthy eating effect each organ individually. They also learned the important of how physical activities effect the organs and their overall health as they grow.  Students were taught MyPlate, and how to use it as an example each time they were given a plate of food.  The OrganWise curriculum also included worksheets for the students to complete and also a pretest and posttest were administrated to monitor progress using the k-2 grade nutrition education survey, meeting the Kentucky Nutrition Program Standards for SNAP-Ed.   

Evaluation of the partnership showed, out of the 136 elementary school students the summary from the pretest and posttest using the Clemson University Web-based reporting system (WEBNEERS) 82% of the youths showed they had improved their diet quality by improving their ability to choose foods based on the Federal Recommendation Guidelines or gained knowledge.  Sixteen percent (16%) of the youths showed improvements in physical activity practices or gained knowledge, while sixty five (65%) gained knowledge on safe food handling practices.  Overall, sixty one percent (61%) of the total program participants improved in one or more core areas.    

The partnership between Kentucky State University Extension and Montgomery County Schools seems to be meeting the goals of improving the eating habits of this county’s youth, and will continue during the next term. The goal will still be to continue to improve the eating habits and long term decrease in the rate of obesity and health risk associated with obesity.  

Sources:  

1. Kentucky State University Nutrition Education Program 2018 Annual Report. 

2. WEBNEERS, Clemson University Web   for Extension, 2017