KSEF Emerging Ideas: Development of Nutrition Education CD on Healthy Eating to Combat Overweight and Obesity in Kentucky

The prevalence of ovef\veight/obeshy in the residents of Kentucky, old and young, is abo've average with respect to the rest of the nation. What were once thought of as "adult-only" diseases (hypertension, dysIipidemia, type-Z diabetes) are now being commonly diagnosed in youth as a result of this extra burden of weight Prevention of this epidemic of overweight and obesity must be the ultimate goal. One ke)" to prevention is knowledge---knowledge of the problem and its contributing factors as well as knowledge regarding the course of action to undertake to prevent the problem from occurring. Towards this end, nutrition education at an early age is crucial to develop a "healthy eating for life" plan that will prevent this epidemic from occurring in the first place. Hence the importance and purpose of this proposal: To develop a unique and innovative CD that fits into Kentucky's current school curriculum and educates children on how to "eat healthy for life", Teaching children to make healthy food choices is the first step towards the prevention and curtailment of overweightlobesi!y' The unique, innovative features of this CD include; (a) its alignment with nutrition core-content curriculum requirements for Kentucky schools, thus useable in classrooms; (b) its reinforcement and integration with other required subject matters in the curriculum (i.e., math, reading, problem solving, etc); (c) its use of several learning styles to present its content: verbal/linguistic, visual/spatial, logical/mathematical, musical, bodilylkinesthetic and (d) a positive nutrition message with opportunity to practice this message (via activities) as part of the CD to name a few. Upon completion of this CD the 2ndl3rdgrade user will be able to (1) describe and explain each component of the Basic Food Guide Pyramid with respect to where foods fit, \"lhythey are needed, and how much of them is needed and (2) use this CD to plan and evaluate their snack, meal, and/or entire day's food choices. This CD is being co-developed by nutrition, computer science and elementary education experts. After being developed, it will be tested in Znd/3rdgraders and revised as necessary. The future impact of this CD on nutrition outcomes in Kentucky's children is a planned research activity spin-off; the second is the business side of marketing, reproducing and developing other educational CD's to expand the series.