Question 2
What type of interventions or programs do you think should be implemented to help improve the dietary intake of America's adolescents?
posted by lcflier @ 5:46 PM
15 comments
ISU Dietetic Internship Journal Club
Objective: To become familiar with current scientific literature on a variety of nutrition topics and to gain experience in gathering, organizing, critically evaluating, presenting and facilitating group discussion of the literature and the implications to practice.
15 Comments:
One new promotional tag line coming out soon for eating fruits and vegetables is "More is Better" meaning that even though we recommend 5+ servings of fruits and vegetables daily this may seem too impossible for some people. They should instead make baby steps and realize that more is better than nothing. I think this would be a very good point to make to adolescent students. Also emphasizing that lifestyle changes need to be made now and not to wait until they are older to prevent/treat heart disease and cancers. Many different promotions and interventions were mentioned last month and so in addition to those I would also say utilize grants available, while they may be a lot of paperwork lots of money is available to schools interested in improving diet habits of children, many grants will even provide money for additional staff members necessary for the promotion...something to think about.
Mary Ellen,
You gave a lot of good suggestions. I had not heard of the "More is Better" promotion but it sounds like a good way to get kids to eat more fruit and vegetables. In addition to calcium which was mentioned last month as an area of concern for adolescents, and fruits and veggies which you mentioned in this post. What other nutritonal or lifestyle issues do you think should be focused on in interventions geared towards adolescents? I guess what i'm asking is what areas are the most important to focus on for adolescents?
Its hard to say what interventions would be successful with adolescents, I think they are a really hard group to implement successful interventions with. I know a lot of times we say that the younger we start doing interventions, the better, and I do think it is important to teach young children how to eat healthy. However, I also think that the eating habits of the parents have a huge impact on how a child eats throughout their life. If they are used to eating processed foods and fast foods for the first 12 years of their life, convincing them to eat apples and broccoli won't be easy. So, I think parents should be targeted, as well as their children, especially since parents are the ones who go grocery shopping and model habits for their children. I know a lot of what we do at WIC is helping parents to offer their children a wide variety of healthy foods at a young age, so children get used to eating healthy foods at a young age. It is such a hard issue to tackle, and I think getting parents involved in the process is really important.
Adolescents can be a very difficult group to implement interventions upon. Many adolescents struggle with body image issues, the need for quick/easily accesible food, etc. I would encourage adolescents to not skip meals and to find an exercise activity that they enjoy. I would also encourage them to pay attention to their diet now...even though they may not think that this will affect them later. Eating Taco Bell and vending machine Poptarts daily will catch up to you. Taking steps at this age to improve ones' diet will greatly reduce their risk of becoming overweight, malnourished and prone to diseases like cancer and CAD.
I agree with you Kalee, that we need to start interventions with the young children. I am always amazed that little kids are like sponges soaking up knowledge around them. An important point that should be emphasized to people of all ages is balance in everything in life including eating, and activity.
I also agree with Kalee that parents do play a major role in what the children will eat. First parents need to be taught that children need to be introduced to foods several times, even up to 7 times before they will try or eat a new food item. Also parents need to have healthier food available for their children. Instead of chips and cookies for snacks, items like fruits and vegetables should be available. Also schools need to be providing more fresh fruits and vegetables for students to eat. An idea for high school kids could be to have a speaker come and talk about eating healthier and have them all make a pledge to eat atleast one more fruit or vegetable a day. This could be a small adjustment but a step in the right direction.
Andrea said...
I think an important part of an intervention program, maybe in school, for example, should be making eating healthy balanced eating sound exciting. Maybe schools could have taste tests for students to introduce new foods, or foods that might not typically be tried by adolescents, like maybe brussel sprouts. In addition, healthy eating needs to be easy, accessible, and quick for adolescents' busy lives. If grabbing a bag of cut carrots was as easy and accessible as a bag of chips, the carrots might get chosen more.
Andrea said...
Mary Ellen,
I also heard of the More is Better campaign. I can't wait until it comes out. In my work so far I counsel people to just try their best. I think the More is Better attitude will make people feel good about chosing healthy foods more often. With 5 a day, a person may have eaten a fruit and two vegetables, but felt like they failed because they didn't reach the 5 goal. Basically, any consumption of healthy fruits and vegetables is a step in the right direction.
Discussing the "More is Better" campaign put a huge smile on my face because it relates to my thesis. My research involves examining constructs from two behavior change theories relating to fruit and vegetable consumption in adolescents, and the data will hopefully help to better shape interventions. After reading many articles it is evident if interventions are to be successful long term, adolescents and their parents, the schools, and community - everyone - need to be involved to support the positive behavior changes. Interventions need to focus on the barriers to healthy eating, but also what helps promote healthy eating.
Andrea,
I like you taste test idea. This might also be a good way for school cafeterias to get an idea of healthy foods to put on the menu that kids will eat.
Breine,
I think you made an excellent point that for interventions to be successful they need to involve everyone. Adolescents, parents, schools, and the community are all important avenues for interventions.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was enough funding to make it mandatory for all students to have to take ‘Nutrition Class’ in order to graduate high school or maybe even Junior High. It’s amazing that the subject area that has the biggest effect on one’s long term health isn’t necessary for kids to take, and in many schools, not even an option. Since we don’t live in the perfect world, I think bringing parents and kids in to school to learn about the school lunch program would be one idea to start off the school year. Many parents don’t understand the components of the National School Lunch Program, which would fit into teaching them about the importance of the food groups and variety/moderation. I agree that we as dietitians can’t save the world alone, it takes educating all age groups to be more successful.
Everyone suggestions are great! Julie mentioned my point of manditory nutrition classes. My thoughts were incorporating nutrition into sciences classes. Why can't nutrition be a part of sceince? Considering it is a science in itself. I think this would help people to understand the importance of nutrition in our world. Plus it is much easier to teach if food is incorporated. Like Andrea said, we should have tastes tests. Ellen Satter believes that it can take several introductions to a food before children will accept it! Programs that target our youngest and most influential group, I think, will be the most effective towards a healthier society.
I also like Andrea's idea about food sampling. Most kids would probably take a sample of something over taking a whole portion of a food item. By having them try the food this time they will hopefully select it next time.
I agree that introducing nutrition in science classes is a great idea. The difficult part is always initiating the change. One idea to promote nutrition being taught in science class is approaching the creators of standardized tests to add nutrition questions to the science section. Teachers are all about teaching material that is found on standardized tests.
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