Nutrition Education Programs Should Be Encouraged At Every...

Considering the well-recognized benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, it is perhaps a given that consumption of these foods should be encouraged at every stage of the life cycle. Because many health-related lifestyle habits are established during childhood, the school food environment appears to be a prime area of focus for this effort. However, despite the importance of establishing healthy eating habits in these environments, studies have shown that intake of fruits and vegetables is especially low among children (Guenther, Dodd, Reedy, Krebs-Smith, 2006). A variety of strategies have been and continue to be used to increase childhood fruit and vegetable consumption in schools throughout the United States (and throughout the world,†¦show more content†¦One especially successful example of a comprehensive school garden program is the Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California. This project includes a one-acre organic garden, whic h students use to plant, maintain, and harvest a variety of foods. Classroom curriculum from several subject areas are integrated into garden lessons, such as testing soil pH for chemistry lessons and learning about the specific botanical properties of garden plants for biology lessons. The second major component of many school garden programs includes some type of educational curriculum that extends beyond the garden. This too is also well illustrated by the Edible Schoolyard project, which includes a kitchen classroom at MLK Middle School. In this kitchen students can prepare and cook meals using food grown in their own school garden. Like the garden, the kitchen can also be used as an environment in which to teach students a variety of fundamental subjects. For example, teachers at MLK Middle School employ food preparation and cooking lessons involving foods common to different parts of the world as part of a broader lesson in geography and humanities (â€Å"The Edible Schoolyard Berkeley,† 2015). One of the most beneficial outcomes of this type