Research Summaries
- Consumer Food Handling Practices
Indicate Need for Food Safety Education, February 2008 - PDF*
- Illness resulting from food borne disease has become one of the
most widespread public health problems in the world today. An estimated
76 million people in the United States are sickened each year due
to a food borne illness. Of those sickened, 325,000 are hospitalized
and 5,000 people die. The estimated cost to society is $5 billion
annually. A large percentage of these illnesses result from improper
food handling practices in the home. The importance of the home
as a point of origin for foodborne illness has prompted studies
to evaluate aspects of contamination and improper handling of food
in the home.
- Topics covered: bacterial contamination in the home environment,
consumer food handling practices, the role of education and implications
for WNEP
- Developmentally Appropriate Nutrition
Education for Youth Ages 6 - 11, March 2001 (updated January 2007) - PDF*
- Many nutrition concepts are abstract ideas that are difficult
for adults to understand. How many adults can accurately explain
how the calcium in milk builds strong bones and teeth? Yet adults
often include abstract ideas such as vitamins and minerals, nutrients
in food, and digestion and chronic disease risk when they teach
kids about nutrition and health. Child development research shows
that school-age kids need to be presented with concrete ideas and
that they learn best when they can be active and work together on
an activity. No matter how well-designed the activity is, or how
skilled the presenter, kids can’t understand abstract concepts
until they are developmentally ready.
- Topics covered: cognitive development, what's important to kids,
and applying the research - choosing and designing activities.
- Dietary Quality Needs and Situation Data for WNEP Planners, February 2008 - PDF*
- A summary of some of the current research and data that can help us know what WNEP learners need to know. Many links to county-level data, state-level data, national data and other summaries.
- Topics covered: overweight and obesity, healthy eating patterns,
diet and disease/mortality, physical activity.
- Food Resource Management Practices
and Needs of Low-Income Households, February 2008 - PDF*
- The start of the 21st century finds many low-income individuals
struggling to feed their families and themselves. Many hard working
families are struggling, in part, because of their poverty level
wages. Poverty wages are defined as wages that would not lift even
a 40-hour a week full-time, year-round worker to the poverty line.
It would take more than $8.12 an hour to be above poverty wages
for a family of four. In Wisconsin approximately 1 of 5 workers
have poverty-wage jobs.
- Topics covered: food resource management and low-income households,
food shopping practices of low-income households, and topics of
interest to food stamp recipients in Wisconsin.
- Food Security, February 2008
- PDF*
- Hunger and food insecurity are real problems for Wisconsin families.
Statewide, approximately 540,000 people live in households that
are food insecure—they do not have access at all times to
enough food for an active healthy life. This means one out of every
eleven Wisconsin households is food insecure.
- Topics covered: situation and implications for WNEP.
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