KA 703. Nutrition Education and Behavior

Grant County Home Economist conducted several nutrition workshops during the 2010 fiscal year. Two sessions of Eat Food, Lose Weight were conducted to participants expressing an interest in losing weight and keeping it off. This was a collaborative effort with the Dept. of Health's nurse Melvyn Gelb. Both groups were a good cross section of Grant county's demographics. Total attending 26. At least 4 of these participants went on to join weight watchers and have since dropped dress sizes!
A basic nutrition and some 50/50 plate instruction were given to a group of Promotora's from Sierra, Grant, and Dona Ana counties in March. Some instruction on adding 8 minutes of physical activity a day was also given.

The 2010 ICAN Nutrition Program for Grant County 2010 proved very successful and far reaching. The Two Nutrition Educators had 899 youth graduates by the third quarter, and 327 Adult graduates by the same quarter. These numbers exceed their goals for fiscal year 2010. In addition, 31,999 indirect contacts were reached via recipes, take home packets from school youth, calendars, ICAN brochures, curriculum pieces, etc. The program is following the ICAN County Action plan and continues to reach new eligible audiences and continues to make differences in youth and adults eating habits and household food budgets. Research shows that 4 or more lessons are necessary to change behavior and the above numbers attest to both educators dedication to their positions. The ICAN program assistant continues to stretch the ICAN budget as far as possible when procuring groceries and is accurate in entering data from the two educators.

The Annual Extension Holiday Showcase, “The Stockings were Hung”, was presented three times to approximately 389 people. A segment of this program targeted “Holiday Food Safety” and “Healthy Eating Tips”. The participants acknowledged that it is important at this time of the year to be reminded of food safety and healthy eating tips. 40% replied that they will make a conscious effort to utilize the information provided.

Agent developed a program called “Berries, From Farm to Table”. This program provided information on harvest, storage, how to use, how to freeze, common facts and recipes for berries. The county agriculture agent presented information on how to plant and maintain berry plants. This program was presented as a leader training, which in turn was given to approximately 145 people. It was also given to 28 Clovis School cafeteria employees.

A program was presented to the Mothers of Preschoolers on how to improve their general health and ways to encourage their families to eat healthy. We ended the program with making “Quick Mixes”. There were 29 ladies that attended this program.

“Food Preservation” information was distributed to approximately 50 adults and youth. The information included: recommended equipment, proper methods used to water bath and pressure can and emphasized food safety. Some of the participants had canned before but wanted a refresher course and updated information. For some of the others it was a first time experience in food preservation. Testing of pressure canning gauges was also available. People commented that using these home preservation skills, they will be able to provide fresh quality food products to their family.

Diabetics and the Holidays were presented to 28 people at the Hartley House and to walk-in clientele at the Extension Office. Information included: Making Healthy Food Choices, Reading Labels, Revising Recipes, Holiday Meal Planning, Exercise and Portion Distortion. The clientele that received this information responded that this information should help them and/or family members during the holidays.

Home economist, agriculture agent along with two staff members, prepared fresh vegetables on the grill at the local Farmer’s Market. Customers from Farmer’s Market were able to observe and taste. Various vendors participated by donating vegetables and the county extension office distributed information on food preservation, food safety, how to cook various fruits and vegetables and shopping tips and safe storage of fresh fruits and vegetables. This project increased the visibility of Cooperative Extension and encourages customers to buy products from vendors. Consumers continually commented “I didn’t know that it was this easy to grill vegetables”. Approximately 50% of the people tried at least one vegetable they had not eaten prior to that day.
Evaluations, along with conversations during these programs showed over 50% of the participants planned to make one or more of the following changes: use MyPyramid and Nutrition Facts Labels to make food choices and plan meals, control portion sizes, lower sugar and fat intake, and implement new food preparation and meal planning techniques. Along with using proper food handling techniques to increase food safety, increase fruit and vegetable in their diets and increase physical activity.

This agent also aided the Extension Program Assistant in preparing nutrition programs for 238 youth in area schools. These programs target MyPyramid and the importance of eating a well balanced diet, proper exercise and healthy snack choices.


ICAN
In Curry County, the ICAN program has one Nutrition Educator that teaches many hands-on learning lessons which include; basic nutrition, healthy food choices, reading food labels, meal planning, food preparation, food safety and food budgeting. The Home Economist provides training and advice to the ICAN Nutrition Educator as needed.

This year, 2,321 people have attended ICAN nutrition classes with 223 youth and 25 adult graduating. The programs were conducted at Hartley House, Adult Drug Court, WIC, Summer Meal Sites, Women’s Wellness, Clovis Housing, Mother’s Day Out, Baxter Center, Childcare Center, ENMR and ERMSH, along with the following schools: Melrose, Lincoln Jackson, Texico, Grady, Bella Vista and Highland. 82% of the participants reported knowledge gained on programs given, and 20% of the participants stated they definitely will make changes.

Grant County conducted one Kitchen Creations session for 2010. This was held in the mining community of Bayard, NM at the junior high school home economics kitchen. 38 enrolled, 36 completed the two saturday, 6 hour sessions. of these, 9 were diabetic, 3 were pre-diabetic, and the remainder were caregivers to diabetics. 32 of the 38 participants prepare the food eaten in the home. Ages of participants were 24 aged 45-65, 2 participants were in the 18 - 29 age group and 6 were aged 30 -44. Ethnicity was primarily hispanic (58%), American indian(5%), white non-hispanic (37%). 31 females and 7 males attended the class and 18% considered themselves to be in excellent health, while 68% marked Good health, nearly 11% marked Fair health and one person marked Poor health. On final evaluations, 54% reported that they could use the Diabetes Food Guide Pyramid to plan a day's meal, 73% reported using the 50/50 method to control carbs eaten at meals, 65% reported that they could read food labels to find the amount of carbohydrates in a serving, 73% reported that they could now measure food portions, 58% reported eating at least 2 servings of whole grains per day, 65% eat at least 2 servings of non-starchy vegetables at dinner, and 58% said they would use more herbs and spices to flavor foods instead of salt and fat. Many favorable comments were received after each session and overall.

After a request for the training to be able to obtain a home based food processor license, contacted the NM Environment Department and arranged for the training. There were two potential food processors that attended the training along with the agent. Both were discouraged after attending the training and were rethinking their plans for preparing a home based food product.