NUTRITION EDUCATION - Success Stories

• Families Get Cooking: Fiscal Year 2004
• Poverty Stricken: Poverty Simulation Increases Community Understanding
• Families Improve Diet Quality and Food Security: Fiscal Year 2004

Families Get Cooking: Fiscal Year 2004

Want to help your children to eat healthier? Cook with them. Try new foods with them. In 2004, 17 families (49 participants) improved diet quality and food security through three, four -session ‘Fun Family Cooking’ programs. Eau Claire Area School District , Western Dairyland Head Start and Bolton Refuge House each partnered with UW-Extension Nutrition Education Program to offer the program to their families.

Poverty Stricken: Poverty Simulation Increases Community Understanding

Tom Giffey, Leader Telegram reporter, tells about his experience being poverty stricken during a simulation experience sponsored by the Eau Claire County Hunger Prevention Coalition. Nancy Coffey, UW-Extension Nutrition Education Program Coordinator, directed the poverty simulation. Twenty-eight community members gathered to play roles in fictional low-income families.

One participant, Eau Claire City Council member, Dallas Neville, said he felt victimized and desperate after being shuffled from one agency to another to get assistance. Like most families in the simulation, Neville’s was worse off at the end of the exercise. In the real world a comprehensive brochure listing public and private resources would be helpful, he said.

Families Improve Diet Quality and Food Security: Fiscal Year 2004

In 2004, 17 families (49 participants) improved diet quality and food security through three, four -session ‘Fun Family Cooking’ programs sponsored by UW-Extension WNEP in partnership with Head Start and Bolton Refuge House. Twelve of the families (82%) attended at least three of the four classes, and ten families (59%) attended all 4 classes. Parents set goals concerning their personal eating habits, feeding their children, and household money spent on food.

Partnering agency staff conducted surveys with the 12 families who had attended at least three of the four classes, one to two months after class completion. Survey results indicated families’ progress toward improved eating behaviors and food security after their participation in ‘Fun Family Cooking:’

• Ten families (83%) reported that their children are now more interested in helping make the food they eat.
• Eight families (67%) stated that their children are now more willing to try new foods.

• 83% said they have begun “encouraging my child(ren) to taste foods, yet letting him/her decide how much or whether s/he eats the food.”
• 50% said they were now offering a food from each food group for most evening meals; an additional 42% said they had already been doing this before the program.
• 67% had made at least one of the class recipes at home.
• Two families (17%) said they kept track of all the money spent on food for at least one week during the program; an additional 8% said they had already been doing this before the program.
• 50% realized they needed to spend more money on food to have adequate healthy food for their family; an additional 33% said they already knew this before the program. Eight families (67%) reported purchasing less groceries that are “wants” (like chips and pop) and more groceries that are “needs”. Spending less money on chips and pop will give them additional funds for the healthy foods their family needs. Available community food resources were also discussed to assist them in procuring the additional food needed. Bolton staff helped one participant obtain additional food at the local food pantry.
• All respondents stated that they were ‘satisfied or very satisfied’ with the program.
• All respondents wanted a recipe and nutrition tip sent to them quarterly.

Specific comments on progress pertaining to their goals included:

• “During the program my goal was to eat one fruit a day. I have now started to eat 2 fruits a day;”
• “We do not have pop in the refrigerator anymore, only bottled water,”
• “During the program I was at my child’s daycare when the kids were about to eat something. I began to say my child wouldn’t eat that and he did. Now I give the kids foods even though they haven’t ate them previously;”
• “I don’t drink milk. During the program I learned about orange juice with calcium. I am drinking juice once a day since I learned this.”
• 83% of families reported eating more fruits and/or vegetables.
• 33% of families reported eating less fast food.

Participant Details

Western Dairyland Head Start (HS), 6 families and 18 participants

• 67% (4 out of 6) attended all 4 classes. 100% of those attending 3 or more classes responded to evaluation (phone evaluation done by HS staff)

Eau Claire Area School District HS, 7 families and 20 participants

• 86% (6 out of 7) attended all 4 classes. Would have been 100%, but a family had a child sick one evening. They stopped by to say they could not attended due to the illness. 100% responded to evaluation (phone evaluation done by HS staff)

Bolton Abuse Shelter, 4 families and 11 participants

• None of the participants attended all 4 classes. Only one was evaluated because she had attended 3 out of 4 classes. Curriculum will be revised for this target group.

Nancy Coffey, UW-Extension , WI Nutrition Education Program Coordinator, 8/04.

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