Evaluation Summary

The 1st grade nutrition education program is developed for 1st graders and aligns with the USDA’s nutrition guidance system. The program includes eight ready-made lessons aligned with California’s Common Core Standards that teach about all five food groups to inspire students to make healthier choices.

Lessons Cover

• Importance of consuming nutritious foods from the five food groups
• Minimizing consumption of low-nutrient foods high in sugars and fats
• Importance of eating a balanced breakfast
• Being physically active for 60 minutes per day
  

Program Materials

• Teacher guide
• Box of food pictures for in-class activities helping children to identify foods
• A storybook for second grade
  Student workbooks
• A Note to Families brochure sent home with students
  

Key findings from evaluating the program

• The program improved students’ competency to classify foods within food groups
• The program improved students’ ability to identify nutritious snack foods over foods high in empty calories
• Increases in nutrition knowledge persisted throughout the school year
• Teachers reported that the program was easy to implement in their classroom
  

Conclusions

The 1st grade program for 1st graders was easily implemented by teachers, and it appeared to improve children’s knowledge of food groups and healthy snacks. There was also evidence that the program increased children’s physical activity and their consumption of nutritious food group foods for breakfast instead of foods high in empty calories.

About the study

The program was evaluated during the 2004-05 school year by researchers at WestEd, an independent researching firm. Primary outcomes of interest included teachers’ and students’ satisfaction of the program, the age-appropriateness of the nutrition education lessons, and whether or not children gained nutrition knowledge, increased physical activity, and ate more nutritious breakfasts during the program. Twenty California-based 1st grade classrooms (close to 350 students) participated in the quantitative and qualitative evaluations during the 2004-2005 school year. The 1st grade evaluation measured students prior to participating in the program, following the program, and two months later, but no Control group was tested for comparison in this formative evaluation. Read the full report.

Why Nutrition Education is Important?

1st grade teacher, Michaela Nealy, explains why food literacy is important for students.

Watch here

Nutrition Philosophy

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Education Philosophy

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