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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Lucrecia Farfan-Ramirez, MPH, Cooperative Extension- Alameda County, University of California, 1131 Harbor Bay Parkway, Suite 131, Alameda, CA 94502, 510-639-1270, cdalameda@ucdavis.edu
Teachers can play a vital role improving the nutrition quality for children in the school and communities. Poor nutrition is associated with increased educational and behavioral problems, anemia, obesity, heart problems, cancer, and chronic diseases. Teachers as members of the community play an important role towards improving children diets, teaching them how to make healthy food choices, creating a supportive environment by offering healthy appealing food choices, and empowering parents to become leader/role models and facilitators of change. Community empowerment theory suggests that collective community decision making and actions are essential to overcome social, economic, and organizational barrier to achieve sustainable changes when addressing health issues. In particular, low-income communities, with limited access to food, financial resources, and little control over their environment, need to be involved in a collective change. The Nutrition Education Training Academy (NETA) is a partnership between UC Cooperative Extension in Alameda County, and the Oakland Unified School District, Early Childhood Program (ECP), to improve children health and nutrition status of low-income children in Oakland. With the collaboration of Alameda County Maternal and Adolescent Program and Food Stamp and Nutrition Program (FSNEP), we developed a training program to prepare teachers as change agents, mentors in the school and community. We will examine alternative methods to engage school administrators, teachers, and parents in creating a supportive school environment. We will share our progress in training teachers as change agents and implementing and promoting nutrition in the community. Assessment and Evaluation will be shared.
Learning Objectives: "At the conclusion of the session, the participant in this session will be able to
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Oakland Unified School District
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.