<p> A goal of schools is to provide students with practical nutritional information that will foster healthy lifelong behaviors. Unfortunately, students at one school were found to have difficulty grasping basic nutritional information and practical health-related skills. There remains an important gap in current literature regarding strategies to improve students' understanding of nutrition education material. The purpose of this study was to investigate the benefits of a 4-week nutrition intervention unit in the Foods I classes consisting of 82 male and female students in Grades 9-12. Constructivist teaching methods were implemented to provide students with both information and valuable skills, which might positively impact student health and student learning. A pre-experimental quantitative design was used for this study. The repeated-measures <i> t</i> test was used to compute differences in pre- and post-tests scores on the nutrition test, which indicated a 6.207 mean increase in student posttest scores. The 82 students also completed a Likert style survey, which indicated both a positive student result in perceiving a better understanding of nutrition knowledge, and a positive change in dietary choices due to constructivist teaching strategies used in the intervention. These results revealed the benefits of the nutrition intervention unit by the significant increase in students' nutrition knowledge and students' implementation of that knowledge in daily living. The results make an important contribution to the existing literature and can enhance social change initiatives through increasing students' knowledge of nutrition, providing them with life-based skills, and enhancing their quality of life.</p>

<p> The purpose of this project was to create a 6-week nutrition education and culinary skill curriculum for use by educators of middle-school adolescents in conjunction with use of an existing school-based educational garden and kitchen facility. Specifically, this project provides guidelines for delivering education regarding an overall healthy lifestyle during the adolescent years, optimal nutrition, food safety, meal plans, and kitchen skills, two times per season for each of the major seasons (fall, winter, spring) coinciding with the typical Pacific Northwest school calendar.</p><p> The curriculum was designed to provide educators with age appropriate lessons based on scientifically-founded information. The curriculum was reviewed by an expert panel and modifications were made based on their recommendations. The final curriculum was not pilot tested.</p>

<p> The purpose of this project is to create fun and educational lesson plans for before and after school childcare providers of children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The lesson plan will incorporate aspects of physical activity and nutrition into the basic curriculum for this age group. The nutrition and physical activity curriculum contains four themed weekly lessons. Each lesson incorporates a nutrition discussion, an activity related to the discussion, and one group game. The lessons and activities were designed to incorporate minimal materials so that any facility could easily incorporate them. A committee of nutrition professionals and educators reviewed the curriculum and improvements were made based on their recommendations.</p>

<p> Childhood obesity is a disease that affects 17% of children aged 2-19. This disease, best described by a social ecological perspective, is multifactorial in nature and includes individual, familial, community, and societal contributors. As the causes are multifactorial, so too should be prevention and treatment. Healthcare providers, specifically physicians, can play an important role in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of childhood obesity, especially if they appropriately utilize nutrition behavior change counseling to facilitate lifestyle changes. Behavior change falls within the realm of the social and behavioral sciences, disciplines that will receive greater emphasis on the newly designed MCAT 2015^&reg;; therefore, premedical and medical programs may need to alter their approaches to disseminating this discipline-specific knowledge. Nutrition education is currently limited in medical education; and thus, just as premedical programs seek to increase the social and behavioral sciences, so too should they increase nutrition education. In light of these recommended curricular changes, researchers sought to investigate the current state of premedical and medical students. views of childhood obesity. This dissertation describes three studies conducted for that purpose. In study 1, researchers investigated 30 pre-healthcare undergraduate seniors. views of childhood obesity and their sources of knowledge through in-depth qualitative interviews. Investigators found that students with specialized coursework and significant volunteer and/or internship experience had a deeper understanding of childhood obesity; however, as a whole, students failed to see the role of healthcare providers in prevention and treatment. These findings provide justification for premedical programs to guide students to see their role in prevention and treatment through educating them on the social ecological model and providing them with relevant service-learning opportunities and guided reflection. In study 2, researchers conducted a similar nationwide qualitative investigation in 78 third and fourth year medical students. These students described student-, patient- and healthcare system-centered barriers, including their lack of knowledge, patients. lack of access, and their lack of time in practice. Students also requested more applicable information and counseling training in order to equip them to prevent and treat childhood obesity. Much like the pre-healthcare seniors, these medical students failed to discuss their role in prevention and treatment. Therefore, medical schools need to help their students overcome barriers by providing them knowledge and skills and helping them understand their role in prevention and treatment. In study 3, researchers built on the knowledge gained from study 1 and study 2 and developed a valid and reliable computerized tool, the Childhood Obesity Prevention Self-efficacy (COP-SE) survey. Factor analysis of 444 completed surveys from students at 53 medical schools revealed a two factor structure with a correlation of 0.637 between factors. Factor 1 assesses self-efficacy in nutrition counseling while Factor 2 measures self-efficacy to assess readiness to change and initiate nutrition lifestyle changes. There was high reliability within factors (Factor 1 = 0.946; Factor 2 = 0.927), and the correlation (0.648) between the COP-SE survey and a general self-efficacy survey confirmed that the COP-SE measures domain-specific self-efficacy. This valid and reliable survey can be used by medical schools as a formative or summative assessment of students. self-efficacy in childhood obesity prevention and treatment. Further research should include confirming the factor structure and exploring the significance of response trends seen in this sample. The findings of all three studies can be used by premedical and medical programs to maximize the effectiveness of their preparatory programs to provide students with the necessary skills for prevention and treatment of childhood obesity. With the appropriate preparation, future healthcare providers can build their self-efficacy in disease prevention and treatment, hopefully resulting in improved patient outcomes.</p>

Thesis (M.P.H.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Russ Toal, committee chair; Catherine McCarroll, Joseph Mulinare, committee members. Electronic text (83 p. : ill.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Jan 8, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-83).

Thesis (M.S.P.H.)--University of Michigan, 1941.

Thesis (M.S.P.H.)--University of Michigan, 1941.

<p> Intergenerational ethnic health disparities among Asian American young adults have been attributed to cultural, socio-environmental and dietary changes. The relationship between acculturation levels, social media use and dietary outcomes were analyzed using data collected from 137 Asian American young adults in California through an online survey distributed on social media and on-campus recruitment. Correlational analyses, <i>t</i>-tests and hierarchical linear regression were used to observe the predictability of (1) acculturation, (2) social media, and (3) both variables on Fruits and Vegetables (F&amp;V) outcomes. Most participants were bicultural, had daily social media use and 3.88 F&amp;V servings consumed. Acculturation levels significantly predicted F&amp;V servings, but not when adjusted for age and education level. No significant relationship was found between acculturation and social media use or social media use and F&amp;V outcomes. Food purchasing and health-information seeking behaviors were explored, reflecting possible implications involving online health literacy and multidimensional acculturation measures for future health and media studies.</p><p>

Yes / Personalised nutrition (PN) has the potential to reduce disease risk and optimise health and performance. Although previous research has shown good acceptance of the concept of PN in the UK, preferences regarding the delivery of a PN service (e.g. online v. face-to-face) are not fully understood. It is anticipated that the presence of a free at point of delivery healthcare system, the National Health Service (NHS), in the UK may have an impact on end-user preferences for deliverances. To determine this, supplementary analysis of qualitative data obtained from focus group discussions on PN service delivery, collected as part of the Food4Me project in the UK and Ireland, was undertaken. Irish data provided comparative analysis of a healthcare system that is not provided free of charge at the point of delivery to the entire population. Analyses were conducted using the ‘framework approach’ described by Rabiee (Focus-group interview and data analysis. Proc Nutr Soc 63, 655-660). There was a preference for services to be led by the government and delivered face-to-face, which was perceived to increase trust and transparency, and add value. Both countries associated paying for nutritional advice with increased commitment and motivation to follow guidelines. Contrary to Ireland, however, and despite the perceived benefit of paying, UK discussants still expected PN services to be delivered free of charge by the NHS. Consideration of this unique challenge of free healthcare that is embedded in the NHS culture will be crucial when introducing PN to the UK.

This thesis describes the development of the idea of an 'obesity epidemic' that figures prominently in contemporary public health discourse. It uses conceptual approaches from Science and Technology Studies and the history of medicine to analyse changing ideas about obesity, particularly as formulated and mobilised by British researchers from the 1960s onwards, to show how excess body weight became understood as a significant public health problem in this period. The thesis begins by describing the post-war refocusing of medical attention in developed countries from infectious diseases, the rates of which are falling, to chronic disease such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and stroke. Heart disease, in particular, became seen as an 'epidemic'. After World War II, increase research funding by the American government made possible the development of a new research method - the long-term prospective epidemiological study - and a new way of understanding chronic diseases as caused by risk factors such as high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and high blood cholesterol. Excess body weight was includes in this list of risk factors, and so became an object in increased medical attention. The thesis then outlines how a new public health coalition was formed around obesity in the 1970s by British biomedical researchers working on topics in the fields of nutrition, diabetes and coronary heart disease. It describes the development of what I call the 'individual paradigm' of obesity which characterises the condition as an individual problem that leads to heart disease and mechanical complaints and is treatable by weight loss diets. It then describes two key features of British obesity science in the 1980s and 1990s. The first of these is the adoption of the Body Mass Index and the standard cut-off points that are used to define overweight and obesity, which together facilitate the collection and dissemination of data on changes in average body weights, The second is the energy balance model of weight regulation, which served to unify the diverse disciplinary approaches to biomedical research incorporated into this new knowledge, but which could not account for the high rates of failure acknowledged as occurring with conventional treatments such as weight loss diets, anorectic drugs and bariatric surgery. The thesis describes how researchers in the field of obesity science than extended their institutional research to participate in the production of a series of reports for the World Health Organization, including one on the global epidemic of obesity published in 2000. This new platform, combined with data produced by prospective studies, enabled them to disseminate a new understanding of obesity and overweight - what I call the 'environmental paradigm' - which characterises it as a global health problem associated with an increased risk of many diseases and caused by structural factors such as inappropriate diet and sedentary lifestyles. Despite refocusing attention of structural determinants of ill health, however, public health experts were constrained by considerations of political practicality and commercial interest when calling for preventive measures in the areas of diet and physical activity. The thesis concludes by considering the different ways in which scholars have theorised the epidemiological transition from infectious to chronic disease. Drawing on approaches from the health inequalities literature, it argues that the conventional framings of chronic disease epidemiology have tended systematically to obscure structural links between obesity and other forms of diet-related ill health on the one hand, and relative poverty on the other.