Nutrition Education

The second half of my Community Rotation was completed at ShopRite in Bayonne, New Jersey. Interning at ShopRite, I provided in-store nutrition counseling and education to customers/clients. Also instructed food demos, created recipes, cooking classes and held presentations at various locations within the community. Bayonne is considered to be a low-income population, in which many do not have access to healthy food choices nor have had nutrition education. Having said that, a target need of assessment on nutrition education for elementary-middle school children in the community was completed. In addition, this population is not used to trying new foods due to the lack of nutrition education in this community's school district. 

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I conducted a children holiday cooking class at ShopRite to provide nutrition education and a fun/easy healthy snack children could make. The education lesson was on how to incorporate MyPlate and all of the 5 food groups into each meal. The education material used was a large poster of MyPlate. The cooking class demonstrated how to create a healthy reindeer sandwich and snowman yogurt cups! To make the reindeer sandwiches, the children used whole wheat bread, sun butter (for children with allergies), pretzels, raspberries and dark chocolate chips. For the snowman yogurt cups we used, low-fat plain Greek yogurt, dark chocolate chips, and raspberries. As the kids were creating their snacks, questions such as how each ingredient fits into a food group were asked. The children loved the snacks and trying new foods such as the Greek yogurt and sun butter. Lastly, the children who participated were provided with recipes to make their own healthy snacks at home!