Newswise — The Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) announces Food Friends, as the recipient of 2015 Program Impact Award in Nutrition Education. The award will be presented at the 48th SNEB Annual Conference, “Creativity & Innovation in Nutrition Education,” in Pittsburgh, PA on Monday, July 27th, during the SNEB Annual Business Meeting and Awards Ceremony.
The Food Friends Programs aim to provide fun and engaging activities for children that encourage healthy eating and activity for younger children. The Food Friends: Fun With New Foods program works to increase preschool-aged children’s willingness to try new foods in effort to enhance the quality of their diets. A companion program that involves physical activity called, Food Friends: Get Movin’ with Mighty Moves was designed to encourage children to enhance their activity habits early in life. The programs were built on Social Cognitive Theory and the idea that children’s habits are embedded within home and school environments.
Research performed throughout the programs has produced 14 referred publications and 49 abstracts presented at regional, national and international conferences. On behalf of the program Laura Bellows stated, “The research studies have transitioned into programs for widespread dissemination, implemented in 210 Head Start and preschool centers (1,036 classrooms) and 471 family child care homes in Colorado over the past five years, reaching over 66,000 children and families.” The Food Friends programs have been successful for almost 20 years due to their core nutrition education principles. In a letter of support for the Food Friends Program, Michael Pagliassotti, Professor and Department Head of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Colorado State University wrote, “Although the reach of this program is clearly significant, it is also clear that the Food Friends Program produces behavior change. Behavior change appears to be occurring not only in children but also families and even providers. Thus, the Food Friends Programs represents an important, sustainable and impactful strategy to improve health eating and physical activity behaviors in large numbers of people. The Food Friends Program is a model program of behavior change that has a demonstrated impact on large numbers of people.”
The honorable mention of the Program Impact Award in Nutrition Education goes to Cornell University Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs-The Smarter Lunchrooms Movement. They are being recognized for their evidence-based program dedicated to increasing the consumption of healthful foods in schools while decreasing food waste.
The Nutrition Education Program Impact Award is a new award that will be presented annually by SNEB. This award recognizes an individual or group for a nutrition education program or practice that has resulted in documented changes in behavior. Photos and information on past award recipients is online at http://www.sneb.org/about/awards.html.
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