(P16-023-25) Integrating Classroom Teachers as an Interdisciplinary Component of Family-Centered Nutrition Education

Objectives: The health outcome inequities in Washington, D.C.’s Wards 7 and 8 are related to social determinants including systemic racism, food insecurity, and lack of healthy food access. The Health and Nutrition Initiative involves an academic-community partnership between Georgetown University and the National Children's Center (NCC) Early Learning and Early Intervention Center. The initiative focuses on delivering multi-directional nutrition education to families of children with and without disabilities. This initiative is guided by a professional chef, an urban gardener, medical professionals, medical and undergraduate students, and lived experiences of parent participants. This study aimed to learn about current classroom instruction and learning experiences around nutrition, teacher nutritional knowledge and comfort with nutrition topics, and ideas of how to support classrooms to increase nutrition teaching.

Methods: This research project involved creating a reflective survey for teachers and teaching assistants who directly interacted with children at NCC. The survey addressed the teacher's current eating habits, reflections on teacher’s meal choices, teacher engagement with and the promotion of nutrition education in the classroom, and age-appropriate educational tools to incorporate nutrition into their classroom curriculum.

Results: Outcomes revealed that teachers are interested in learning more about how health and nutrition can enhance the classroom curriculum. Teachers identified challenges for expanding their nutrition curriculum, including the children's age, time restrictions, health and nutrition knowledge gaps, and a range of children's comprehension levels. This information will inform the research team to develop activity guides and lesson plans that bridge knowledge gaps and interests.

Conclusions: This exploration empowers teachers to enhance their nutrition curriculum, and for the research team to discover ways to synergize information for the classroom and parent cooking classes. This work emphasizes the importance of enhancing teacher nutrition education and improving teacher nutritional knowledge to promote children’s health that helps them in making health and lifestyle choices as part of the family unit.

Funding Sources: N/A