Welcome to Access Fresh

High school students have plenty of access to processed foods and are more likely to choose them overs healthy foods such as fruits and vegetable. This program and site will eventually evolve to teach students how to track their dietary intake and easy recipes they can make themselves to set them up for when they go off to college. The blog will become filled with videos about kitchen safety and tutorials for easy made meals. Right now this program design will be addressing the lack of fruits and vegetables in the diets of high school students as in Kent County it was discovered that in 2016 only 26% of high schoolers ate five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day (London, 2017). The intended

My Why

I want to work with high school seniors because if they decide to go away to college then they will oversee their own nutrition intake and will build habits that can last for the rest of their life (Deforche, Dyck, Deliens, & Bourdeaudhuij,  2015). I think it is important to teach high schoolers the importance of monitoring their food intake in general even if they don’t go away to college because eventually they will be on their own for making diet choices and will pass these choices onto their own families eventually. I also have the benefit of seeing what has happened to those who don’t know how to monitor their nutrition intake which makes me want to educate high schoolers before they are on their own.

Program Summary

Looking at Activities

This program will work to address the lack of fruits and vegetables in the lives of high schoolers by addressing the interpersonal, intrapersonal, and environmental influences on their food choices. On the intrapersonal level this program will work with a combination of lecture and discussion to improve their self-efficacy in preparing and eating fruits and vegetables (Contento, 2016). This program will also work to expand their knowledge on the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables. The interpersonal level will work with hands on experience to teach high schoolers quick and easy recipes that they can prepare on their own to give them more control of their food at home and feel confident in asking their parents to buy them certain fruits and vegetables (Contento, 2016). In addition to the hands-on cooking, this program will work with kids to learn about tracking their nutrition intake through apps to ensure they are getting the nutrition they need, this is something they can use with their parents to simplify their diet intake (Contento, 2016). This should also help with their environmental factor as they can educate their parents on what they have learned. The biggest environmental factor will be a lesson on how high schoolers can navigate their school lunch rooms to choose more fruits and vegetables if they decide to buy their food, or using the cooking sessions to show them how simple it is to prepare fruits and vegetables to bring as a snack.

To ensure these activities are able to be taught effectively, the location of this program will be at the Downtown Market in Grand Rapids. This is a space with meeting rooms for lectures and learning how to track nutrition, along with a teaching kitchen to learn how to make simple meals with fruits and vegetables. The downtown market is located downtown Grand Rapids and can be easily accessed for many kids in the area as our buses make stops there, this makes it accessible to kids who may not have their own car.

Overall Impact

 I want this program to make high schoolers think about the foods they put in their bodies, how it affects them, and how they can track what they are eating. The idea of this impact is that it will make them develop healthier habits that will lead into adulthood and something they will pass down to their children, therefore building a healthier future (Whitney & Rolfes, 2017).

References

Contento, I. R. (2016). Nutrition education: linking research, theory, and practice (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Deforche, B., Dyck, D. V., Deliens, T., & Bourdeaudhuij, I. D. (2015). Changes in weight, physical activity, sedentary behavior and dietary intake during the transition to higher education: a prospective study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 12(1). doi:10.1186/s12966-015-0173-9

London, A. (2017). Kent County community health needs assessment (United States, Health Department). Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://accesskent.com/Health/pdf/2017KC_CHNA.pdf

Whitney, E. & Rolfes, S. R. (2017). Understanding nutrition (15th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage.