Community Nutrition
Grant ProposalCommunity programs often seek for financial assistance in order to effectively help its community. In the Utah Valley County, many school nurses commented on the lack of concentration and energy in their 7th and 8th grade students. The nurses concluded that if students would eat breakfast, students would have the energy for the workload that school requires of the students. With this information, my group and I wrote a mock grant to promote students to eat breakfast more often. Our program, Eat Breakfast, involved going to various middle schools to teach the benefits of eating breakfast, address the obstacles with breakfast, and identify solutions to these obstacles. We proposed Eat Breakfast to Molina Healthcare with a grant proposal (which included a Gaant timeline, logic model, lesson plan, and budget) and Molina Healthcare agreed to sponsor our program. We educated 7th and 8th grade students about various studies that have been performed indicating that those who eat breakfast maintain a healthy weight, have more energy, and receive higher grades, than those who choose not to eat breakfast. We incorporated ChooseMyPlate by challenging the students to combine 3 food groups into their breakfast meals. Through this experience, I learned how to work in a group setting for a prolonged period of time with a real company to promote nutritional education to youth in the community.
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Pregnancy ProjectIn order to provide a baby's optimal health, it is crucial for pregnant women to maintain a healthy diet. For this assignment, I followed a pregnant woman throughout the semester to assess her dietary intake and chart her weight gain. First, I performed a diet recall and compared her current diet to the ADA's recommendations. I conversed with the pregnant woman about the results I found, how she is doing well in her diet, and what she could do to improve. At the end of the semester, I followed-up with the pregnant woman to see how she was doing with goals that we set previously.
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Well-Child ProjectChildren have unique recommendations for nutrition, portion sizes, growth rates, and developmental skills. For this assignment, I interviewed a 3 year-old boy where I performed a diet recall and tested activities using DDST. This experience provided me to prepare my interview and and discussion with an approach that would engage a child's attention. Later in the semester, I performed a follow-up with the child's mother and provided her information about what she is doing right and how she could do better.
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Cultural Foods: Latin America
The purpose of this assignment was to develop cultural competency. This group research project involved a collaborative effort to understand various cultures throughout the world. The assignment involved being able to explain in a presentation about Argentina, Brazil, Haiti, Jamaica (and the remaining Caribbean islands), and Peru's food interactions. Topics of discussion included: how each country chooses, prepares, cooks, eats, and selects which foods to consume. The attached handout is a quick visual summary for each country's most popular food choices as well as some socially interactive tips to help educators be more cultural competent in personal settings.
Community Fieldwork Reflection Paper
One of our classes is entirely devoted to completing nutrition rotations at different community entities. This opportunity to serve and support in the community helped me better understand the fulfilling work of a community nutritionist. I completed rotations at the local soup kitchen, WIC clinic, congregate meals center for the elderly, and Head Start for children. When doing these rotations I was able to work alongside with members of the community, observe how each organization operates, and learn more about each program in more detail. At each location I was required to take notes and either write a reflection paper about what I learned or fill out a worksheet going over the finer details of the facility. Below is a sample of my reflection about my experience at Mountainland Head Start. The mission of this Head Start program is to promote school readiness for children and self-sufficiency for families in need through quality, comprehensive services and community partnerships.