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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Annina Burns, The Nutrition Service Project, The Pennsylvania State University, Nutrition Department, S. 126 Henderson, University Park, PA 16802, 814-865-8747, acb163@psu.edu and Terryl Hartman, PhD, MPH, RD, Nutrition Department, The Pennsylvania State University, 5 Henderson Building, University Park, PA 16802.
Many youth today lack the resources for accurate nutrition information to help build life-long health skills. The Nutrition Service Project (NSP) is a Penn State Volunteer program, initiated by the presenter, and developed in collaboration with Penn State students to teach underserved youth about health and nutrition. NSP recruits and trains college volunteers as members to create and teach nutrition programs. NSP members collaborate with teachers, local health professionals, and community members to develop nutrition lessons and present them to middle and high school youth during spring break. A total of 177 male and female students ages 12-19 were surveyed. Of the students surveyed, 122 students participated in a week-long intervention and 55 were controls. All youth participants received a pre-survey assessing knowledge of nutrition concepts. The intervention group then participated in a program where college NSP members taught a variety of topics. After the intervention, all students were given a post-survey to assess a knowledge change, planned behavioral changes and skills learned. After adjusting for other covariates, including age, grade level and highest level of attainment in parents education, it was found that a change in knowledge of basic nutrition principals was statistically significant (p=0.03) among the intervention. There was an increase in planned positive behavioral modifications for eating habits and physical activity, but not significantly. These results suggest that short term participative nutrition education interventions taught by college peers may modify knowledge of nutrition concepts in underserved youth.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant in this session will be able to
Keywords: Nutrition, Service Learning
Related Web page: www.ecsel.psu.edu/~sam392/NSP/
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.