Nutrition Education
Dr. Dana Kent, Medical Director of Health Promotion and Education created “Five Steps to Health/Cinco Pasos a la Salud” with funding from the Local Food and Nutrition Education Program (LFNE). Five Steps" is a program designed to help participants improve their nutrition, physical activity and access to healthy foods.
The program consists of five two-hour classes covering topics like how to enhance meals with more fruits and vegetables, how to increase daily physical activity using innovative and inexpensive materials, how to include family members to make changes, and practical suggestions for shopping and preparing meals to increase access to healthy foods.
A formal evaluation used validated surveys completed before and after participants attended the classes. In addition, the surveys were completed a third time by participants six-to-twelve months after attending the program. Results demonstrate statistically significant improvement in health behaviors in the pre- to post-program surveys.
Specifically, participants increased their consumption of fruits and vegetables, increased daily physical activity, and increased the use of shopping lists, meal planning, grocery store navigation, and other techniques to enable them to purchase more healthy foods on a tight budget. In the long-range follow-up surveys, participant surveys indicated they retained practices learned in the program up to twelve months after attending.
Support is needed to expand this proven, evidence-based program to include additional chronic disease management classes that will assist patients already dealing with chronic illness like diabetes, hypertension, and cardiac disease.
Download presentation to see statistically significant program results of
"Five Steps to Health/Cinco Pasos a la Salud".
English