Nutrition education plays a critical role in many HPC programs including diabetes and hypertension disease management and cardiovascular risk reduction. Recently HPC has been able to concentrate several health education efforts in this single area.
A Nutrition Education Program (NEP) targets the food stamp population in community-based settings in the Philadelphia area as part of the Pennsylvania Nutrition Education Plan (PANEP). HPC has three projects as part of NEP: 1) Eat Right Now 2) Philadelphia Public Health Nutrition Education Initiative, 3) Eat Well Project. The participants benefit from the nutrition education activities by increasing their understanding of how improving their dietary quality and food resource management, increasing their physical activity will have a beneficial affect on their overall health, reduce overweight/obesity and improve their outlook on life. Food and nutrition education provided helps food stamp eligible residents in making healthy food choices with limited resources through small group educational sessions, workshops and individual counseling covering the following topic areas: risk factors of overeating and benefits of healthy eating; components of a healthy prenatal diet; healthy eating habits; safe and sanitary food handling and storage practices; planning and serving healthy meals; budgeting; available community nutrition and food education resources and the benefits of physical activity. Specific topics geared towards behavioral change include: ability to plan and prepare a healthy meal; food safety, cooking and storage practices. Easy-to-read nutrition education materials in English, Spanish, and other languages are developed and distributed for take-home messages.
Target Population: Food stamp recipients or those eligible have limited access to health education--especially African Americans and Latinos who are:
- Homeless living in shelters and transitional housing
- Chronically mentally ill living in community living arrangements
- Patients of the City of Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH) Family Health Centers
- Southwest Philadelphia community members
- School students, parents, teachers and faculty
(1) Eat Right Now serves 20 elementary schools in Philadelphia targeting students, parents, teachers and faculty. The interventions for students have primarily been designed as multi-faceted interventions that include one or more of the following components: classroom interventions, school environment, parental involvement and a peer led approach. The use of multiple channels to reach children is a tenet of Social Learning Theory (SLT) – a theoretical framework that provides an explanation of how individuals make behavior choices (Bandura, 1986; Perry et al., 1990). SLT is the underlying theory for Team Nutrition, and has been used for many research studies focused on changing eating behaviors (Contento et al., 1995). The premise of SLT is that personal characteristics, environmental factors and behaviors interact dynamically – therefore behavior both affects and is affected by individual and environmental factors
(2) Philadelphia Public Health Nutrition Education Initiative serves patients of PDPH Family Health Centers. It is a collaborative between PDPH and HPC to provide group and individual nutrition education services to consumers eligible for City health services. The goals for the individual counseling and group sessions are to change the participants' dietary habits and to increase the nutritional quality of foods purchased and consumed (especially fruit, vegetables, whole grains, low fat protein and dairy and calcium sources) and to educate the food stamp consumers on prevention of cardiovascular disease through healthy eating behaviors. In addition, an initiative is conducted in Southwest Philadelphia at Francis Myers Youth Access Center and Mitchell Elementary School. Food and nutrition education are provided to children and parents and to teachers through training and providing nutrition education materials; to children in class and on school trips, in the cafeteria, in after school and summer programs, through bulletin boards and posting information in corridors and stairwells; and to parents through workshops and meetings.
(3) Eat Well Project serves chronically mentally ill consumers. It is a collaborative between Resources for Human Development (RHD) and HPC to provide group and individual nutrition education services to RHD mentally ill consumers living in community living arrangements through food and cooking demonstrations, taste-testing, group and individual nutrition education activities. The target audience benefits from the nutrition education by increasing their knowledge and skills so that they will learn to shop economically, prepare food safely and eat nutritious meals once they are living on their own in the community. Project activities focus on educating program consumers on how to use their food dollars to shop economically, where to purchase nutritious foods and how to safely prepare nutritious meals.
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