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The Arizona Nutrition Network trains teachers and other youth workers on ways to help students make healthy choices about the foods they eat.

By La Monica Everett-Haynes, University Communications
July 21, 2009

Concerns about children growing up without proper nutrition and adequate exercise have increased throughout the nation given the increased prevalence of childhood obesity.

At The University of Arizona, one program is training teachers and program administrators to help their students – mostly children who are low-income – to begin making more healthy choices.   

The UA Arizona Nutrition Network, which runs throughout the year, began in 1998 to coordinate initiatives throughout the state that promote nutrition and physical activity among youth. 

"We are providing information about fostering healthy habits at the crucial years," said Laurel Jacobs, program coordinator for the network, which provides the training and also funding incentives for the sites participating in its program.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 19 percent of U.S. children between the ages of 6 and 11 are overweight. Children and adolescents who are obese are at a heightened risk for type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and also liver and lung problems.

"We want to increase knowledge and also prevent childhood obesity, which we are seeing more and more," Jacobs said, pointing to research that indicates involving children in nutrition early helps to prevent health problems in the future.

The Arizona Nutrition Network's target audience is children who are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP-Ed, program – formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. The network is currently working with more than 100 sites, collaborating with school districts, the YMCA and parks and recreation programs.

The program is funded through the state's Department of Economic Security Family Assistance Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and also partners with the Arizona Department of Health Services.

The program operates under a train the trainer model and, this fall, is expanding its services even further by beginning to work with other Cooperative Extension programs, such as 4-H and the Master Gardeners.

"Nobody else in the state is using our model," said Vanessa Farrell, a senior research specialist in the UA's nutritional sciences department. 

The program is run out of the nutritional sciences department, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Cooperative Extension program.

"We're using the train the trainer model because we want to make the program more sustainable in the schools," said Farrell, also a UA Cooperative Extension liaison for the 4-H Healthy Living Task Force.

In doing so, network representatives meet with teachers and program coordinators to provide lessons and nutritional resources while helping them figure out ways they can incorporate nutrition at their sites through professional development. The network also tries to involve food service workers, librarians, recreational staff and others.

The program promotes the "Eat Well Be Well" and "Grow a Healthy Child" campaigns, which supports ideals associated with finding a balance between food and physical activity. It also focuses on eating fruits and vegetables and improved calcium consumption, among other things.

"We're trying to change the culture of these schools so that we hopefully see healthier choices," Farrell said.

The network also will begin working with the Tucson Community Food Bank through snack programs, and is adding a number of other school sites in the Amphitheater Unified and Tucson Unified school districts.

"Nutrition education is only part of what teachers teach throughout the day, so we try to provide enough support so that they can teach it well," Jacobs said. "So at a time when state educational funding is constrained, we're trying to show how our program can be used in schools that are experiencing reduced funding." 

Jacobs noted that the program provides supplemental funding to participating sites so that they can then purchase nutrition-integrated items for their own programs, such as exercise equipment, books, food for demonstrations and games. 

"This is translating some of the most important research about healthy habits into a way that we can provide community outreach," Jacobs said. "And the community staff see a natural link between their missions and working with students and our mission."