Nutrition Education

Service Learning Project

Healthy Eating: How to Discern the Healthiest
Choice When Eating Out and Proper Serving Sizes

Mothers Refuge
November 15, 2016

Laura Wendte
HN 600
 Laura Wendte

BACKGROUND:

The nutritional status of pregnant or nursing adolescents is vitally important to not only the

fetuss development but also to that of the growing adolescent. Lack of general, prenatal & postnatal

nutrition has negative impact on overall health of mother and fetus/child and adverse consequences

towards future chronic diseases (Wise, 2015). Proper education to enhance understanding of nutritional

needs, serving sizes and how to discern healthy options when eating out is crucial to maintaining overall

good nutritional status. Pregnant adolescents are at increased risk of nutritional deficiencies and many

have poor eating habits relying heavily on convenience foods that are high in calories and fat, plus lack

many vital nutrients. (Montgomery, 2003)

Many homeless teenagers have lacked the atmosphere growing up where proper nutrition is

demonstrated in their home/personal life coupled with a lack access to a variety of healthful foods

compounds the need for nutritional guidance. The participating group has heavy reliance on fast foods as

main source of nutrition and low socioeconomic status and age both negatively affect use of nutritional

information at fast food restaurants (Green, Brown, Ohri-Vachaspati, 2015). Individuals who reported

using calorie information purchased an average of 146 fewer calories than those who did not (Green,

Brown, Ohri-Vachaspati, 2015).

Mothers Refuge is a home for pregnant homeless teenage girls, whom can stay up to the childs

first birthday. They receive weekly monetary allowance for completing chores and attending

informational sessions. In addition to money, they receive coupons to be used at the house store that

contains baby items, personal items, foods; clothes, etc. They are all priced comparable to Wal-Marts

pricing to help the residents learn to budget money; though they are free to use their money any way they

want. The onsite staff noted that all of the girls frequently eat fast food, with some spending the primary

portion of their money at these establishments.

 Laura Wendte

JUSTIFICATION:

Pregnant homeless youth present specific educational challenges to provide an environment of

safe and nonjudgmental learning opportunities (Glanz & Rimer, 1997) (Montgomery, 2003)

According to The Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior, the best practices in nutrition education

is the use of evidencebased approaches as effective tools to promote healthy eating (Society for

Nutrition Education and Behavior, 2009). One such approach would be using the Social Cognitive

Theory to promote self efficacy. Some ways to promote self efficacy would include: Active Mastery,

Vicarious experiences, Verbal Persuasion and Emotional Arousal. It is also important to note that utilizing

peer based learning strategies can increase self efficacy (Glanz & Rimer, 1997).

I decided that rather than try to convince them to never eat fast food, it would be more beneficial

to try to persuade them to make healthier, educated choices when dining at fast food restaurants. It was

also noted that they frequently consumed improper serving sizes and relied heavily on convenience foods,

leaving their diet to be lacking in nutrients and unbalanced in general. For this education session I focused

on activities where participants broke into 2 groups. They practiced active mastery, vicarious experience

and verbal persuasion through choosing appropriate serving sizes for food groups based off of visual

household items. Emotional arousal and active mastery were practiced through matching up the fast food

items to their appropriate nutritional content, showing some surprising nutritional facts while verbally

informing on how diet can affect their and their childs health. There was verbal persuasion by

emphasizing every small achievement and close to right answer during demonstrations.
 Laura Wendte

SESSIONS DELIVERED AND LESSONS LEARNED:

I decided to make the presentation as interactive as possible to try to keep the participants

engaged throughout. I started off with 1 board that listed the average womens nutritional needs that

included total daily calorie and a breakdown of food groups and recommended serving sizes, chats of

food items and their corresponding household item serving size (item name covered for purposes of game

later on) and 1 large picture of the #11 meal from KFC (teams were to try to guess cal and fat in meal) &

2 identical game boards, one for each team that contained picture of items from McDonalds, Taco Bell,

KFC, and Subway. Teams were to try to match the calorie and fat on pre printed labels to the appropriate

meal in an effort to show them that it can be very hard to discern which items have more or less

calories/fat and why it is important to look at nutritional info prior to ordering.

After the matching game I showed them the correct answers and they talked about how surprised

they were at how far off some of their guesses were. Next we talked about serving sizes of and used

visuals of household items for reference, for example 4 dice = 1 oz of cheese, tennis ball = 1 medium

fruit/1 cup of berries, etc. Next I showed them some common food items in appropriate serving sizes. I

showed them what 100 calories of carrots looked like, a cheese stick, and apple, a potato, yogurt, tilapia,

Grilled chicken breast atop a bed of lettuce, popcorn, noodles, spaghetti sauce, & ground beef. We talked

about how some serving sizes such as pasta and meat were much smaller than what is typically consumed

at one meal. I told them this was ok, as long as you account for eating more than 1 serving in you total

calories for the day. They then made their predictions for the fat/cal content of the #11 meal and after I

posted the responses I revealed that the meal contained 1410 cal & 70g fat, whereas all the food I brought

in totaled 1486 cal and 40g fat.

In the beginning of the presentation the participants were on their phones or laying on the couches

(It was held in a den style room) and once I started the games they began to become more and more

engaged. I was very pleased with the amount of questions being asked and conversation/debate going on

about nutrition as it opened up new areas to discuss. I handed out each participant a folder which
 Laura Wendte

contained 3 recipes of nutritious meals that are appropriate to be blended into baby food, a handout

covering the household item serving size equivalents, the chart listing the average womans daily caloric

and food group servings needs, a informational paper titled The Five Most Unhealthful Fast-Food Kids

Meals a sample 7 day menu for a 2000 calorie diet plan & a Nutritional Questionnaire to be completed

and turned back into me.

SUPPORTING MATERIAL:
Laura Wendte
 Laura Wendte

QUESTIONS:

What does healthy eating mean to you?

-Majority reported eating lots of salad, fruits, vegetables, not too much fat..

Has / did pregnancy changed your eating patterns? If yes, how?

-2 reported it made a major change in their eating patterns
-6 reported no change
-2 reported worse diet due to pregnancy cravings

What are some reasons that make it difficult to eat foods that are nutritious for you?
(What foods do you wish you could eat more of, and why dont you?)

-Main answers were: lack of access/ not knowing how to cook, lack of time, convenience
of pre packaged or fast-food meals, not knowing what to eat.

What did you find was the most helpful resources for you to use in making healthy
choices from todays presentation?

-They really liked the activity and were shocked at some of the nutritional content of their
favorite fat food items, many stated they would always look up the nutritional infor from
here on out.

-They implied the household item portion guide was helpful and were glad I included that
in their packet.

-They were pretty excited about the recipes stating that one of the employees had been
teaching them how to cook.