In my last entry, I touched on the complex issues that surround nutrition education and access to healthy affordable foods. I’d like to dig a little deeper into the importance of continued and increased funding for programs like EFNEP.
EFNEP in Connecticut only has six community-based educators located in Hartford, New Haven and Windham counties. They are dedicated and hard-working. Some of the things they teach are exploring food attitudes, shopping skills, reading labels, food safety and food preparation. EFNEP participants have fun, try new foods, learn new skills and make changes to help them feed themselves and their families better. Sometimes we work with parents and kids cooking together. In Connecticut, about 96% of EFNEP participants make at least one positive food behavior change. They even spend less on food, while buying more nutritious foods.
The problem is funding! Across the nation, EFNEP programs are limited and reach less than 2% of their potential audiences. Food Stamp Nutrition Education is also available to food stamp recipients, but it has not had the documented success that EFNEP has…yet its funding is about 5 times higher! Studies on EFNEP cost benefit have shown that for every dollar spent for EFNEP, anywhere from $3.00 to $10.00 can be saved on health care costs.
My soapbox – CT needs state funds for effective food and nutrition education for low- income families. State funds could then be used as match to apply for more federal funds for nutrition education. The amount of money that companies spend on food advertising boggles the mind – in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet nationally, EFNEP gets about $68 million, and Connecticut’s budget is in the same ballpark as Maine, Oregon and North and South Dakota – states with very different demographics than Connecticut! Massachusetts has more than twice the federal funds for EFNEP than we do. Representative Rosa DeLauro is a great champion for EFNEP and has helped us get increases in recent years. But still, the funding allowed for in 1969 was $92 million! Obviously, Congress doesn’t understand how hard it is to make ends meet, and how hands-on, personal food and nutrition education experiences can make a real difference. I cannot ask our legislators, at either the state or national level, for funds because I am a state employee. But you can! If you want to chat about this more, respond to this blog.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Nutrition Education to Help People Save Money? – Linda Drake
People need all the help they can get these days to be able to eat. The food assistance programs that End Hunger CT works with are vital to give folks either actual food, like the summer food program for kids, or food stamps to help them buy more food. But I think that helping people learn more about the food they eat, how to choose food for better health AND save money at the same time can be important, too. While the dollar menus are tempting, do they really save money if you’re feeding a family? At what cost to health?
Nutrition education is criticized because it hasn’t proven it works. But the major force that works either for or against nutrition education is the complex food environment in which people find themselves and how it has influenced them over time; the attitudes and values they hold as a result of that complex environment; and their ability and willingness to make choices that go against the tide.
Most of us know what we SHOULD be eating, but it’s the doing it that is hard. We all choose food because we like it. Other reasons are that it’s available, affordable, and we know how to prepare it. Now, with food costs going up so fast, people rely on cheap food to fill their cupboards and their stomachs. These include easy-to-fix or ready-to-eat processed foods that are high in fat, sugar and/or salt but low in important vitamins, minerals and fiber. These foods contribute to obesity, and increase risks for heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
I am the director of a federal food and nutrition education program (Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, or EFNEP) that works with low-income families and kids in targeted areas throughout the state. EFNEP is a USDA nutrition education program that has shown improvements in food behavior and knowledge, but this is after a series of several contact hours, within the community, and in-depth, personalized, hands-on, interactive education (usually involving some tasting of nutritious foods) conducted by educators who understand the issues that people face daily.
Effective nutrition education like EFNEP, when combined with access to food assistance programs, can help people maneuver their food environments better and can improve their health and well-being.
CT EFNEP information – including publications to download
National EFNEP information
CT Food Policy Council- great recipes for CT Grown foods
Nutrition education is criticized because it hasn’t proven it works. But the major force that works either for or against nutrition education is the complex food environment in which people find themselves and how it has influenced them over time; the attitudes and values they hold as a result of that complex environment; and their ability and willingness to make choices that go against the tide.
Most of us know what we SHOULD be eating, but it’s the doing it that is hard. We all choose food because we like it. Other reasons are that it’s available, affordable, and we know how to prepare it. Now, with food costs going up so fast, people rely on cheap food to fill their cupboards and their stomachs. These include easy-to-fix or ready-to-eat processed foods that are high in fat, sugar and/or salt but low in important vitamins, minerals and fiber. These foods contribute to obesity, and increase risks for heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
I am the director of a federal food and nutrition education program (Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, or EFNEP) that works with low-income families and kids in targeted areas throughout the state. EFNEP is a USDA nutrition education program that has shown improvements in food behavior and knowledge, but this is after a series of several contact hours, within the community, and in-depth, personalized, hands-on, interactive education (usually involving some tasting of nutritious foods) conducted by educators who understand the issues that people face daily.
Effective nutrition education like EFNEP, when combined with access to food assistance programs, can help people maneuver their food environments better and can improve their health and well-being.
CT EFNEP information – including publications to download
National EFNEP information
CT Food Policy Council- great recipes for CT Grown foods
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
