ground for the quality of diet in later life. If so, nutrition education needs to be aimed at the total family as a whole­children and parents-in order to im­prove the nutritional status of a popula­tion. Recognition of nutrition education as a part of life-long education is over­due.

Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Article Number 6451.

REFERENCES

I . Breckenridge, M.E., Food attitudes of five- to twelve-year-old children, J. Amer. Dietet. Assoc., 35 :704, 1959.

6. Sims, L., Unpublished data. 7. Beyer, N., The food habits and nutrient

intake of elementary school children: a longitudinal approach, Master's thesis, Michigan State University, 1972.

8. Davenport, E., Calculating the Nutritive Value of Diets, A manual of instructions for the use of punch cards for machine tabulation, ARS Publication No. 62-10-1, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 1964.

9. Watt, B.K. and Merrill, A.L., Composi­tion of Foods-Raw, Processed, and Pre­pared, U.S.D.A. Handbook No.8, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 1963.

10. Church, C.F. and Church, H.N., Bowes and Church Food Values of Portions

Commonly Used, 11th ed., J .B. Lippin­cott Company, Philadelphia, 1970.

11. Food and Nutrition Board, R ecom­mended Dietary Allowances, 7th ed., Na­tional Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1968.

12. Emerson, G.A., Nutritional status U.S.A., J. Nutr., 91(Suppl. 1) :51, 1967.

13 . Burkhart, A.C., Smarten up and snack right! Here's how to do it, pp. 273-278, in: Food for Us All, The Yearbook of Agriculture, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 1969.

14. Hill, M.M., Creating good food habits­start young, never quit, pp. 260-265, in: Food for Us All, The Yearbook of Agri­culture, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Wash­ington, D .C., 1969.

2. Clark, F., A scorecard on how we Ameri­cans are eating, pp. 266-272, in : Food For Us All, The Yearbook of Agricul­ture. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washing­ton, D.C., 1969.

TABLE 6 Percentages of Total Snacks Consumed by Children

3. Beal, V.A., Dietary intake of individuals followed throughout infancy and child­hood, Amer. J. Public Health, 51 : 1107, 1961.

4. Kerrey, E., Crispin, S., Fox, H.M. and Kies, c., Nutritional status of preschool children. I. Dietary and biochemical find­ings, Amer. J. Clin. Nutr. , 21 : 1274, 1968.

5. Lantz, S., Unpublished data.

Breads, cookies, cereals Sweets (candy, pop, dessert) Fruits, juices

Milk Non-carbonated, flavored drinks Nuts, popcorn, potato chips Vegetables

Preschool

30.9 21.2 18.0 12.3 9.3 6.0 2.5

Elementary

School 29.4

20.9 23.2 15.7

6.6 2.4

1.4

VOLUNTEERS TEACH NUTRITION TO TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

Why do some elementary school teachers resist teaching nutrition to their students? This article identifies several causes and describes a successful nutrition education program conducted by volunteers teaching teachers and students.

Summary Common barriers to the introduction of nu­

trition into the elementary school curriculum were identified and a program, "Children's Chowder," developed to overcome them. The program reaches and teaches children and teachers, simultaneously, in the classroom where the teacher can view childre,n's responses to nutrition activities. The use of high school and college students and parents as volunteer teacher aides turned out to be an inexpensive, euily implemented, and effective way of using available resources and increasing community­school i,nteraction.

The program, introduced in the schools of a Michigan community, has been successful in terms of convincing te.chers and principals of the importance of nutrition education as part of the curriculum. Out of 22 teachers in the program during the school year 1972-73, !eVen introduced complete ,nutrition units on their own or with volunteers; two were see~ing volun­teers; and one requested another student vol­unteer for nutrition activities.

THE A UTHOR is Supervisor Aide & Stu­dent C oordinator, Cooperative Extension Service, Washtenaw County, A nn Arbor, MI 48108, and Nonresident Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Michigan.

Vol. 6, No.4, October-December, 1974

Health professionals are increasingly outspoken about the inclination of peo­ple to ignore the relationship between health and diet. Young children, they claim, are exposed to a variety of adver­tisements that create in them the desire for sugared cereals, vitamin pills and as­tronaut-type snacks. Can children also be exposed to an organized body of knowl­edge which allows them to develop their own bases for evaluating information they get from television, family, and friends? Using this knowledge, can they develop a sense of responsibility for their diets and respect for their bodies?

Many nutritionists see the schools as a reasonable point of contact between nu­trition information and the child (1, 2). However, the way an individual teacher evaluates his or her ability to teach the subject and the view of the school ad­ministration on including the nutrition unit in the curriculum ultimately define the curriculum (3).

Beverley B. Chethik

After talking to principals, teachels, and school nurses in our community, we found that nutrition was taught infre­quently in the elementary schools. (Al­though kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers may involve their students in cooking activities, there is little em­phasis on the concept of good nutrition.) Accordingly, we have worked for two years to stimulate the schools to include nutrition in the curriculum.

In this paper, I will discuss 1) several barriers we identified while introducing a nutrition unit into the schools in a Southeastern Michigan community, 2) the unit itself, "Children's Chowder," and 3) the specific techniques used for its implementation in the schools.

The Barriers

As a first step to securing a place for the nutrition unit in the schools, we met with teachers, principals, and nurses and identified a variety of barriers that con-

Journal of NUTRITION EDUCATION / 133

tributed to its exclusion from the cur­riculum. These include:

1. Teachers and school administrators give priority to the development of aca­demic skills in their students. They do not feel the same urgency about teaching health education.

2. Although some elementary school teachers want to teach a nutrition unit, they do not know where to begin, and they are reluctant to spend a consider­able amount of time developing a unit. They feel inadequately prepared (4), partly because nutrition courses are not required for teacher certification and partly because nutrition inservice train­ing is minimal. The money available for teacher training is spent on the high visi­bility programs: drugs and alcohol , rac­ism and sexism in the schools, and sex education. Even if teachers are willing to receive training on their own time and without pay, scheduling is inconvenient.

3. While the school nurse is viewed by the school community as the health re­source person, she rarely leads nutrition activities in the classroom. At a time when voters approve school taxes reluc­tantly, the nursing staff may be reduced to a skeleton crew. The nurses who re­main on the staff often feel pressured to care for children who are currently ill; nutrition education may be an activity for which they have little time (5).

4. The school administration and teaching staff believe that children learn best about nutrition at home, from their parents. They doubt that nutrition edu­cation is needed because they believe children eat well.

Perhaps it is budget limitations or an inherent lack of interest in nutrition, or a reluctance to see nutrition "usurp" time

needed for "more important" activities that is responsible for the paucity of nu­trition activities in the classroom. What­ever the cause, nutrition education takes a back seat in many local schools throughout the county.

Realizing this, we developed a strategy to overcome these barriers.

We set out to reach and teach children and their teachers, in the classroom, dur­ing the school day. By teaching the teacher while she remains with her class, we overcome the teacher training prob­lem; nutrition facts and attitudes are shared with the children and teacher si­multaneously. The teacher who is trained in her classroom views the enthusiastic responses of the students and appreciates the variety of learning that takes place. Given firsthand experience with the ac­tivities themselves, she will, we observe, introduce the nutrition unit to her class the following year.

Because we appreciate the teacher's view of her role and responsibilities (that is, teaching cognitive skills), we can as­sure her that an innovative nutrition unit is another tool for enhancing cogni­tive learning and academic skills (3). Children, using measuring cups and tape measures, recipes and labels, tape re­corders and scales, find an exciting use for many of the skills they are develop­ing in school.

Although we do not directly challenge the staff's feeling that nutrition education is best taught at home and that the chil­dren are well-nourished, it is our obser­vation that, once the unit is introduced, the teacher begins to recognize that many children lack adequate nutrition information and practice poor eating

A mother volunteer works closely with the teacher on a bread-stick project.

134 / Journal of NUTRITION EDUCATION

habits. Subsequently, they feel the unit begins to fill this void.

We find that a nutrition unit receives its greatest welcome in the schools, and the variety of barriers evaporates, if the staff observes that the unit may be imple­mented easily, with little cost to the sys­tem, and if the unit complements the existing school curriculum.

Our Intervention

The core of the program we introduce in the schools is 1) a set of innovative lesson plans, "Children's Chowder," de­veloped for use with kindergarteners through third graders, fourth through sixth graders, and parents; and 2) a "de­livery system" that is based on the use of "nutrition volunteers" (6).

Personnel: The NutritiOJ~ Volunteer. Since we have made a commitment to teach both children and teachers in the classroom, we do not rely on the tradi­tional methods of communicating ideas: inservice training and curriculum out­lines. We turn, instead, to colleges, high schools, and homes in the community and ask people with varying degrees of professional training and experience to communicate a nutrition unit to the audience in the schools (7).

College students from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines seek to test what they have learned in the university, to assess their own strengths and skills, and to develop their own styles for shar­ing information (8). Many colleges now allow students to supplement their didac­tic work with field experiences and to substitute these field experiences for li­brary research papers. Students are per­mitted to use the community as a learn­ing laboratory. Because of this experi­ence, a biochemistry major who teaches nutrition to first graders may become "sensitized" to nutrition concerns and may be able to relate these concerns to his future profession (8).

The high school home economics stu­dent may be bored with nutrition facts and disinterested in looking critically at her own diet. However, she may be anx­ious to work as a teacher aide in an ele­mentary school classroom and share "good food" values with elementary school children. In the process, she may internalize some of these values herself. A supportive teacher and an enthusiastic class allow the student to learn as she teaches.

Parents, too, respond to the call for "nutrition volunteers." With the advent of "open classrooms," parents feel in­creasingly comfortable in the school and

Vol. 6, No.4, October-December, 1974

often volunteer to work in a classroom for one hour or one-half day a week, over a period of a month or a semester. The parent volunteer may be motivated by a desire to do something special for her own child, or she may want to stay in touch with her own profession. If she is considering returning to college (for a teaching certificate or a degree in public health) she may want to assess the wis­dom of her choice. Regardless of her motivation, as she moves into the school with "Children's Chowder" she becomes an important part of the nutrition team.

Mrs. L., a "retired" gas company home economist, felt unsure of her­self and her abilities. "[ really wor­ried that [ couldn't organize every­thing and that the children wouldn't listen to me. I wasn't sure the teacher would think [ was doing something useful. But you know, [ haven't lost my professional touch," she said after the children made breadsticks. The potential volunteer is not neces­

sarily trained in nutrition or health edu­cation. She may have no experience working with children. "She" may ac­tually be a "he." B'Jt armed with the "Children's Chowder" lesson plans and fun books (crossword puzzles, dot-to-dot puzzles, and scrambled letter puzzles) and continuing supervision, the volunteer develops an easy rapport with the chil­dren and a working alliance with the teacher. Because of the volunteers' efforts in the schools, children, teachers, and parents increasingly value the concept and the practice of good nutrition.

More Personnel: The Classroom Teacher. At the start, we emphasize the importance of teacher involvement. The teacher's support is important initially and in the long run, too.

The teacher, with her own set of lesson plans, decides with the volunteer which lessons are appropriate for her class and which activities best complement the other units the class is doing. She deddes when to begin the unit and its duration.

If the teacher previously conducted nutrition activities on her own, she is encouraged to in~orporate these into the unit, always adapting "Children's Chow­der" to take advantage of the "teachable moments" unique to her class.

Each teacher has developed her own style of involving and limiting the children; the volunteer learns from the example set by the teacher, but she also depends on the teacher to actively inter­vene with the children who get out of hand.

Vol. 6, No.4, October-December, 1974

The teacher who introduces the activi­ties to one small group of children while the volunteer works with the rest of the class creates additional opportunities for each child to touch and taste and talk about what he is doing.

The children in Mrs. M's group di­vided wads of dough into three equal parts, rolled the dough into i8-inch strips and then cut each strip into 6-inch pieces. While the teacher was busy with the "rolling group," the volunteer and another group of children measured the flour, salt, and water into the bowl and prepared to mix. The teacher has the unique opportun­

ity to introduce and reinforce a variety of nutrition activities and concepts dur­ing the many hours each week when the nutrition volunteer is not in class.

Mr. K's fourth graders were excited by the "nutrition break" he intro­duced to the class. "Adults take cof­fee breaks," he told the children. "You need a break too, but when you choose your snack, think about what it does for you." Each day, as the children took their break, they evaluated the snacks they brought. "And there weren't too many potato chip people after the third day," reported Mr. K. when the volunteer returned the next week.

The children's respect for good nutrition is stimulated by the teacher's enthusiasm and commitment to the unit.

The teacher's help is invaluable, too, when the volunteer tries to choose meth­ods of involving parents. Are there par­ents who will help when the children are preparing breakfast in school? Which parents are most likely to follow up the in-school nutrition unit with a four week

after-school unit which they lead in their own home? Should we hold a Basic Four party during the school day, or will the parents only be able to come on Saturday because "most of them work?"

In the long run, the teacher who works closely with the volunteer is most likely to introduce "Children's Chowder" to her new class the following year. The teacher's firsthand experience prepares her to do the unit on her own or with the help of one parent whom she herself supervises.

Lesson Plans. "Children's Chowder" allies itself with the curiosity and en­thusiasm with which children come to school. Children enjoy squeezing, smell­ing, and tasting foods. They like to ex­plore different techniques (growing beans) and concepts (the hollowness of a green pepper) in concrete, scaled-to-size activities. They are "turned on" by mys­tery, drama, and action. Young children, especially, learn most easily about nutri­tion when they can relate it to their own bodies.

Martha, a seven-year-old, takes her turn tracing her friend on a five foot piece of paper. With the tracing done, the two girls search through magazines for pictures of food. Cut­ting out pictures of ice cream and bananas, a hamburger bun and a slice of meat, the girls paste these foods around the outline of the body. Martha draws a line between each food cut-out and the parts of the body that especially need the food. She easily connects the dish of ice cream to a bone, but she's un­sure what to do with the bananas.

"Every food can't be connected to a special part of your body. Some foods just help other foods to do

The teacher's participation i.n nutrition activities delights first graders.

Journal of NUTRITION EDUCATION / 135

their job, but they're important too. That's why we need to eat a vcriety of foods every day," says the volun­teer who works in the second grade classroom. Young children learn best when they

can relate the activities to their own ex­periences. As second graders, they set up their own grocery store in the classroom and re-create the many trips they take, with their parents, to the grocery store.

Robert and Larry decorate the emp­ty boxes that make up their grocery store. Martha carefully prints "VEGETABLES" on the front of the store. Several other children di­vide the empty cartons, cans and boxes into the basic four food groups, reading labels as well as pic­tures. As Roger cuts out play money, Emily arranges the bags in order. They wait anxiously for the store to be stocked so that they can make a trip to the store and buy "four foods that you would buy for your dinner if you wanted to grow big and healthy and have lots of energy." Fourth, fifth, and sixth graders are es­

pecially motivated to learn basic nutri­tion theory when they anticipate "being teacher" and sharing their "knowhow" with other people.

Alex, a fourth grader, marches to the school secretary's office, pen­cil and paper in hand. "I made an appointment to talk to you because I want to know what you ate for dinner and lunch yesterday and what you ate for breakfast today. . . . Did you eat snacks too?" "We're all going to talk about what you and the teachers ate-when I get back to class. And then I'll come back and tell you what you should eat everyday," he promises Mrs. J., the secretary.

Alex surely learns as much as the sec­retary when, back in class with the other children, he evaluates the secretary's diet and prepares to share his evaluation with her.

Children who are confronted with questions and charlenged to seek answers and solve problems develop an increas­ing attitude of responsibility for the foods they eat (9). Even young children can be encouraged to try a variety of foods, chosen from the Basic Four Food Groups, as they begin to associate what they eat with how they grow, how they feel, and how they look.

Breaking the Ice. The creation of a program that has potential for delivering

136 / Journal of NUTRITION EDUCATION

nutrition information to children, teach­ers and parents is only a first step. Imple­mentation in the schools is an even more critical challenge.

In each school system, there are prin­cipals who are innovative and receptive to new ideas. There are others who are committed to using proven techniques. Th~y may worry that an untried program will waste everyone's time. As outsiders to the school system, it may be difficult to convince school staff that we offer a program that is academically sound as well as innovative.

In this community, we have tried sev­eral approaches with success. At one school, we began the nutrition unit with an after-school cooking group. The prin­cipal had an opportunity to observe for himself that a small group of children could learn about nutrition and have fun simultaneously. When we approached the principal several months later with an offer to introduce the children to nu­trition activities during the school day, he supported our move. He trusted our goals and our techniques.

The nurse who feels committed to bringing nutrition education into the schools is also a valuable ally. Her ready­made contacts with principals and teachers allow her to introduce the unit to the staff and to single out teachers who may be especially receptive to the pro­gram.

Conclusions

The decision to bring nutrition educa­tion into the schools did not meet with instant success. Volunteers require en­couragement and support at odd hours. Principals need proof that "Children's Chowder" will work. Children with boundless energy and teachers with a tendency to "leave it all to the volunteer" complicate implementation.

In view of these problems, we intro­duced "Children's Chowder" into the schools on a limited basis. At the outset, we initiated the program in two schools in one city. As we felt more confident, we extended the program to other schools throughout the county. How­ever, before moving into a new school, our first priority was to continue to sup­port the program being conducted in the previously involved schools.

During the 8-month period from Sep­tember 1972 to June 1973, 22 teachers assisted volunteers as they introduced "Children's Chowder" in the schools. One year later, seven of these teachers have introduced a complete nutrition unit (with a minimum of six activities) on their own or with the assistance of a vol-

unteer they have recruited. Two teachers are searching for mother volunteers. One teacher requested that another student volunteer work with her; she was not willing to recruit a mother volunteer from her own class. Two teachers have left the county. One teacher was provid­ed with a student volunteer for a second time. Nine teachers have not yet been contacted.

By comparison, during the 4-month period £rom September to December 1973, we worked with 23 teachers, and we expect that teachers from this group, too, will do nutrition units on their own next year.

By continuing to provide teachers with puzzles and fun books, by lending them nutrition-related films, film strips, games, and books (10), we believe we have made it possible for them to introduce-on their own-to a new group of children and parents each year the nutrition ac­tivities which were first introduced to them by a nutrition volunteer.

In this way, we reason, we can create a nutrition education program with deep roots in the school community.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The author is grateful to the students

from the University of Michigan and East­ern Michigan University and to the non­student volunteers who developed and im­plemented nutrition activities in Washtenaw County classroom.

REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. Peterson, M. E. and Kies, C., Nutrition

knowledge and attitudes of early elemen­tary teachers, J. Nutr. Educ., 4: 11, 1972.

2. MacReynolds, I. P., Can teaching good nutrition be bad? J. Nutr. Educ., 2: 13, 1970.

3. Whipple, E., Stifel, L. D. and Brennand, L., The three R's help make good eating important, 1. Nutr. Educ., 2:55, 1970.

4. Fricke, I., An editorial - Inadequate teacher preparation for health education, 1. School Health, 41 :74, 1971.

5. Marriner, A., Opinions of school nurses about the preparation and practice of school nurses, 1. School Health, 41 :417, 1971.

6. Single copies of "Children's Chowder" lesson plans and fun books are available from Cooperative Extension Service, Room 1, County Building, Ann Arbor, MI48108.

7. Lampe, I. M., Preparing school health personnel,]. School Health, 41: 109,1971.

8. May, D. S., Liberal arts students involved in community nutrition work, 1. Nutr. Educ., 4:70, 1972.

9. Poolton, M. A., Predicting application of nutrition education, 1. Nutr. Educ., 4: 110, 1972.

10. Single copies of a bibliography "Turning Children On to Good Nutrition" are available from Cooperative Extension Service, Room 1, County Building, Aw Arbor, MI 48108.

Vol. 6, No.4, October-December, 1974