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Nutrition program geared to establishing good eating habits for a lifetime
 

10:15 a.m., May 16, 2003--Hoping to change the poor eating habits of American school children, a University of Delaware professor has developed the “Got 5?: Nutrition for Kids” curriculum to encourage second graders to add new foods, particularly fruits and vegetables, to their diets.

Marie Fanelli Kuczmarski, professor of nutrition and dietetics in UD’s College of Health and Nursing Sciences, developed the curriculum, which has been tested at an elementary school in Maryland and will be featured in coming months in the Journal of Nutrition, Education and Behavior and in the Journal of School Health.

Kuczmarski said studies have shown that obesity is on the rise among American school children, with up to 15 percent considered overweight.

One reason, she said, is a diet high in snack foods, which have large amounts of fats and sugars, and low in fruits and vegetables. That is combined with a lifestyle often lacking in physical activity.

Nutrition literature indicates that the earlier good eating practices are established, the longer those habits will persist and the more likely a person will be to retain them as an adult, Kuczmarksi said, hence a program aimed at second graders.

Because young children generally respond well to active learning, “Got 5?: Nutrition for Kids” aims at enhancing fruit and vegetable consumption through interactive strategies such as food tasting, self-monitoring of consumption through a daily calendar and setting personal goals for improvement.

The primary goal is to get children to eat five fruits and vegetables a day, which inspired the name of the project.

Kuczmarski said other key objectives are to help children apply their knowledge of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Guide Pyramid to daily life, to appreciate foods from various cultures and to understand the importance of physical activity to good health.

The curriculum was given a trial run by second grade students at Waterloo Elementary School in Columbia, Md., and Kuczmarski said the results were heartening.

Students were provided new fruits and vegetables to sample and were asked to rate them using hedonic scales consisting of faces, some happy and some not so. They also marked daily food intake calendars, created international food alphabet posters and played games such as fruit and vegetable bingo.

As sections of the curriculum were completed, students were awarded prizes, such as jump ropes and Hula Hoops, in order to promote physical activity.

Ninety percent of the students tasted all the foods presented, Kuczmarski said, from couscous and tofu pizza to asparagus, grape tomatoes, fruit salsa, kiwi and star fruit. A particular favorite was the fruit smoothie, she said.

Also, 86 percent of the students returned all their calendars.

Kuczmarski said the study found “a significant increase in fruit intake” and some increase in vegetable consumption, although not an increase that was statistically significant.

It also found “a significant change in students’ willingness to try new foods,” she said. By the end of the course, teachers and parents reported that students were asking for fruits and vegetables.

“The bottom line is you can do this with second graders and you can have an impact on their diet,” Kuczmarski said.

“Establishing good eating practices in elementary school children may minimize the negative dietary behaviors that occur in middle school,” she said. “Exposing children to healthful food items, teaching them to identify and monitor goals to promote health and encouraging exercise may decrease the risk of the development of obesity in children.”

The project was supported by the Dole Food Co., which provided cookbooks; the Produce Marketing Association, which provided images of dozens of fruits and vegetables; and the California Apricot Producers, which supplied apricot Beanie Babies as prizes.

Funding for the project was provided by the Center for Academic Practices in the UD College of Health and Nursing Sciences.

Article by Neil Thomas