Cooking in the Classroom to Fight Childhood Obesity

 Cooking in the Classroom to Fight Childhood Obesity

11.11.2011 

From the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior: Based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other reports that childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years, we recognize the importance of reaching our children early to form good food habits. However, with teachers having to incorporate more and more learning standards into their already packed curriculums, where does that leave room for nutrition education in elementary schools? Perhaps by putting it into school subjects like geography and the study of other cultures, math, and science. A study in the November/December 2011 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior shows how the Cooking with Kids program successfully helps students learn school subjects and develop cooking skills.

Cooking with Kids is an experiential food and nutrition education program for elementary school students, based on social learning theory and food acceptance principles (cookingwithkids.net). Students explore, prepare, and enjoy fresh, affordable foods from diverse cultural traditions. Founder and executive director Lynn Walters and program director Jane Stacey have developed integrated curriculum materials for grades K-1, 2-3, and 4-6. Cooking with Kids also encourages students to treat each other respectfully and to practice the social skills of working together to prepare a meal and then sitting down to eat together.

As part of a larger evaluation of the program, investigators from the Colorado State University Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition interviewed 178 fourth-graders to determine students’ cooking attitudes and experiences at school and home after a series of cooking plus tasting or just tasting classes alone. Their teachers and Cooking with Kids food educators were also interviewed. Students and their teachers who participated in both types of experiential classes described positive experiences with curriculum integration into academic subjects, and those receiving cooking classes reported opportunities to enhance their social skills. The study also found that students in cooking plus tasting schools did not perceive cooking-related tasks at home as ‘‘chores’’, unlike students who received just tasting classes or those who did not receive either type of class. And, in general, students’ perspectives were that the curriculum strengthened their understanding of the content of school subjects.

Dr. Leslie Cunningham-Sabo, PhD, RD, Assistant Professor at Colorado State University, says, “This study describes student and teacher perceptions about the integration of nutrition education programs with academic curriculum topics, which is essential in justifying nutrition education’s continued place in the school curriculum. It documents the importance of including cooking in school curriculum as it is a practical mechanism to promote health, social and educational skills to better prepare students for adulthood.”

The article is “Qualitative Investigation of the Cooking with Kids Program: Focus Group Interviews with Fourth-Grade Students, Teachers, and Food Educators” by Catherine V. Lukas, MS, RD and Leslie Cunningham-Sabo, PhD, RD. It appears in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, Volume 43, Issue 6 (November/December 2011) published by Elsevier.

In an accompanying podcast, Leslie Cunningham-Sabo, PhD, RD, discusses the results and implications this study. It is available at www.jneb.org/content/podcast

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About Colorado State University (CSU)

Colorado State University is a land-grant institution and a Carnegie Research University (Very High Research Activity). CSU was founded as the Colorado Agricultural College in 1870, six years before the Colorado Territory gained statehood. It was one of 68 land-grant colleges established under the Morrill Act of 1862. The doors opened to a freshman class of 20 students in 1879. In 1935, the school became the Colorado State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, or Colorado A&M, and was renamed Colorado State University in 1957.

Location

• Fort Collins is a midsize city of approximately 144,000.
• Located in northern Colorado at the western edge of the Great Plains and at the base of the Rocky Mountains
• Money Magazine ranked Fort Collins as the sixth “Best Place to Live” in America in 2010.

Colleges

• College of Agricultural Sciences
• College of Applied Human Sciences
• College of Business
• College of Engineering
• College of Liberal Arts
• College of Natural Sciences
• College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
• Warner College of Natural Resources

Enrollment

• About 30,000 total students and 27,000 resident-instruction students
• From every state and more than 85 countries
• Colorado residents comprise 80 percent of all students.
• 14 percent of U.S. students are ethnic minorities.
• Entering freshmen class of about 4,350 students
• About 1,350 new transfer students
• The average entering freshman ranks in the 73rd percentile, brings a 3.56 grade-point average, and has an average ACT composite score of 24.5 or an SAT combined score of 1,134.

Faculty

• 1,540 faculty members
• 1,000 faculty on tenure-track appointments
• 99 percent of tenure-track faculty hold terminal degrees
• Student-faculty ratio is 18 to 1

Other Employees

• 2,300 administrative professionals (900 are research associates)
• 2,035 state-classified personnel
• 1,600 graduate assistants
• 175 post doctorates
• Fort Collins’ largest employer

Student Life

• 412 student organizations
• 35 honor societies
• 18 percent of the student population participates in intramural sports
• 5 percent of the student population joins one of 23 fraternities or 14 sororities

Residence Life

• 13 residence halls with a capacity of about 5,350 students
• 609 apartment units for students with families
• 299 apartments for graduate students

Libraries

• Library holdings include more than 2 million books, bound journals, and government documents
• Access to more than 430,000 electronic resources, including e-journals, e-books, and research databases available at http://lib.colostate.edu
• 320 desktop PCs plus more than 239 laptop computers (Macs and PCs), iPads, video cameras, and specialized calculators are available for checkout.
• An expedited interlibrary loan service, including desktop delivery of articles