5/31/12

Today was our last day of class!!! We had a Locavore Brunch out by the ridges and put put course. It was a beautiful day. Everyone prepared local foods to bring. We talked about all the foods and where they came from and how to prepare them. All of the dishes were great!! I loved the kale chips because I have been meaning to make those for forever. We also went over other major things we have done in class like eating for two dollars a day. I liked to hear about everyone else experience since we never really discussed them in class before. 

5/29/12

Today we went to the Holter Holstein Farm. The farmers daughter, Alissa, gave the tour and a representative from the American Dairy Association helped out in explaining things when needed. The farm has been a family business for over 60 years. It has about 350 milk cows. I thought all of their procedures were very impressive and thought out. The facility was very clean and they have very strict regulations. They explained a lot about the cow milking parlor. This farm thing is definitely something you need to grow up in to be able to accomplish there's a lot a lot you need to know to accomplish a clean farm! 

5/24/12

We had a guest speaker today named Karen Bakies, RD, LD. She is the Student Affairs Director with the American Dairy Association Mideast. She talked to us about how to communicate the nutrition messages we are trying to get across. We learned that the American Dairy Association has been around since 1915. They provide scientific-based nutrition info to the media physicians, dietitians, nurses, educators, and consumers. American Dairy Association is funded through dairy farmers. She covers the states of Ohio and West Virginia. There are 3,099 dairy farmers in Ohio. She taught us a lot about how to give presentations and keep people interested so we can effectively translate our message.

5/22/12

Today we worked within our groups. It was nice to get time to get together and work on our projects.

5/18/12

Today was absolutely beautiful! We got to get off campus again and go to the Good Earth Farm. The owners name who spoke to us was Paul Clever. His wife and him are founders of the farm. I was amazed at this farm and how it was non-profit. I give them props for being able to pull that off. The purpose of the farm is to provide food for pantries with healthful good quality produce. Many pantries lack this. This farm also serves as a place to give education to visitors who are often lacking the experience of seeing where our food comes from. Good Earth Farm serves 60 people a week on the produce and dairy they make. So there is a big plot dedicated to produce and to the cattle they have. The farm is funded by donations and grants. However it got a jump start by the generosity of the neighbors who gave him the plot of land out of the kindness of their hearts. I believe the monitoring and evaluating of the farm is done by  Paul and his wife. I overall  thought this project was an excellent idea and wish that their were more places like it to help consumers be able to attain fruits and vegetables more easily,

5/15/12

We had another guest speaker today Melissa Alfano. She is the director of Athens and Perry county WIC. WIC stands for Woman Infants and children and is a supplemental food program for pregnant breastfeeding women. There are other criteria that WIC includes for one to recieve they benefits. Some of the purpose of WIC is to improve pregnancy outcomes, reduce infant mortalitly and provide infants and children with a healthy start to life. Funding for WIC is 100% federal funding. SOme programs that WIC does are as follows: nutrition education and classes, breastfeeding classes, supplemental foods, farmers market coupons and younger and older solid classes. The food packages are specific meaning they cant just spend the money as they chose I think this is a good idea so it forces them to buy more nutritionally optimal foods.


The Second part of class we watched a webinar, it talked about cancer and its importance in the US today. The webinar was done by Cheryl Rock from the American Institute of Cancer Research. There are many clinical trials being done in order to examine diet modification can have an affect on breast cancer occurrence.  She also talked about diet's influence on epigentetic events. Which seems interesting and may come into play more in the future.

5/10/12

Today we went to the compost facility. It was nice to be outside on a beautiful day. Annie lau8rie Cadmus is the director of sustainability who is in charge of facilitating projects and programs that foster sound campus stewardship and commitment to sustainability goals. The expansion of the compost facility is one of her current projects. She told us all about how the facility works and what additions are being made. She said this as of no is not a cost efective program. But it is sustainable and ecologically friendly. It is funded by a grant as of now when its done OU will cover the funds.

The Ecohouse is designated to three students a year who keep the house sustainable as well as work on a project. There is also a community garden free of cost to anyone.

5/8/12

Today we went to the extension office. I didnt even realize we had one in the area. Brittany Pangburn and Joyce Shriner were the two women who spoke to us today. They both work for the etension office. Brittany is the 4H- program assistant which is under the extension educator who is Joyce. Brittany oversees 4-H programs. 4-H program stands for Head, Hands, Health and Heart. It is for youth of many different bacground to essentially socialize. There are three branches agriculture/natural resources, 4-H, and family and consumer sciences. Basically the kids get involved in projects and events in order for them to learn about new areas. The funding comes from multiple sources. It comes from the County Commissioner, some percentage from OSU, some from membership fees, and some from fundraisers. Joycee is the extension educator which is coverad at the federal local and state level. They're hired through Ohio Extension System and aupervised and evaluated by the OSU Extension. The purpose of the Extension is to aid in diffusing among the people of the US, useful and practical information in subjects relating to Agriculture and Home Economics and to encourage application of the same. Joyce also mentioned that FNP program or he Food Nutrition Program where adults who recieve assistance teach FNP and expanded food and nutrition education at the country level.

5/3/12

Today our speaker was Heidi Anderson. She works at WellWorks.  Her job is mainly to do marketing and event planning for WellWorks. Funding, just like with Franice, comes from membership fees. The College of Health Sciences and Professions also donates some. The main purpose of WellWorks is to promote wellness and educate the community. Heidi did not have any marketing or event planning background so this has been a learning experience for her. I thought this was interesting because that means you don’t always have to have experience in the position to get hired. She has to do a lot of collaborating with other people and agencies around the community. Paper forms and surveys are used for formal evaluations of events. Her nutrition background as well has her master’s degree helps her with her job and in planning effective nutrition events.

5/1/12

Today in class a speaker came and her name was Janine Faber, RD, Med, LD. This was by far my favorite speaker so far. I just would really enjoy her job. She was from the Healthy Living team from Meijer. Her job encompassed many aspects of community nutrition. This team seeks to increase sales and promote customer loyalty by communicating health solutions and product knowledge to shoppers. The team is composed of registered dietitians with various backgrounds that bring different aspects to the table. Janine had her masters in health education. Another one of the RD’s was a personal chef; another had an exercise component to her credentials. The team is funded by sponsors that they have a small say in who they want to represent so they can still support healthy diets. The program overall is each team member is responsible for a district of their community where they hold events like expos, fairs, cooking demos, they also hold in store events, and post things on Facebook and twitter for social media. This job sounds like everything I would want in a position and I hope someday I can make it there.

4/26/12

Today we were supposed to have a guest speaker named Karen. She is the executive director for the Ohio Board of Dietetics. She has previously worked for WIC. She didn't show up for an unknown reason. So Dr. Holben instead went over what she is all about. The board consists of 5 members. 3 registered dietitians, on licensed dietitian, and 1 PhD educator. The board always has to have at least on educator. and in most cases they're an R.D. The meetings are open to the public and held several times throughout the year. It has many roles. They set standards of practice, and they make sure these standards are being met. They also issue license and permits. They keep track of continuing education hours, and investigate complaints mad and if they find evidence they determine how they should discipline. Some states are not as strict with licensing and aren't as strict with the titles of dietitians versus nutritionist.

4/24/12

Today we had a guest speaker. Francie Astrom from WellWorks came in to talk to us. Francie is an R.D. who works a lot in the community and at the community center. Francie has worked here at O.U. for about 15 years now and she feels that also being a certified diabetes educator has given her an edge in her career. Employees of O.U. or any of their dependents, retired O.U. employees, Athens community members, corporate members in Athens or students who work at WellWorks are all the individuals allowed to use the WellWorks facilities. WellWorks is supported by the membership fees that the members pay. So Francie is paid through those fees. She will see anyone who wants to speak with her, it is structured to help prevent any major complications, not necessarily to treat diseases that are already present.

4/19/12

Today we discussed all of our agency assignments we did. It was pretty relaxed. I feel like I got a pretty good sense and overview about all of the different agencies that were assigned. I really like the Let's Move Campaign, and Fruit and vegetables programs, because I think its important to get fresh fruits and vegetables back into households as well as physical activity.

4/17/12

Today we had our first guest speaker. His name was Nick Claussen and he works for Athens county job and family services. He talked a lot about SNAP services. The program is designed to raise nutritional levels to expand buying power and to safeguard the health of individuals in low income households. I thought it was interesting how he spoke about how they control what people buy and how much people try to cheat the system and sell their snap cards online and stuff like that

4/12/12

Today in class we watched a video about a farmer's market. The video showed the people in action. It was interesting peoples lives were impacted by the produce being available. It made me want to have a garden of my own to have my own produce available. It would also be nice to start a farmers market in my community because we don't have anything like that. 


Olivia 

4/10/12

On Tuesday we talked about food security again. It was pretty uneventful. I found SNAP interesting we talked about how this program was directed toward the rules and regulation of the food stamps in comparison to WIC. I agree they need to have regulations on what you can and cannot buy with SNAP. I  think it really unfortunate when some people are really in need of the money for food, and others are buying alcohol and cigarettes with the money.

4/5/12

Thursday we continued to talk about food insecurity. It was interesting to see the survey questions they use to determine food insecurity. I felt like many of they were very specific about children, and I would be interested to see surveys based on food insecurity not related to children. It was very sad to see the videos about the lines at the food bank. It was sad to hear them talk about why they were there and what they had to do to keep them and their children fed. I was really shocked to hear about the family that would buy whole milk and water it down to have enough milk, I never thought about that. I was also surprised to see the amount of people like nurses who have jobs but are still having trouble making ends meet. Food insecurity seems to be growing into more of a problem than it seems to appear.

4/3/12

Today we went to the garden plot. I had seen the plot from a far before but never really looked at it up close or knew much about it. I was surprised about how cheap the plots were. I also thought we would have a larger plot. I was very impressed with some of the garden plot set ups. I really liked the one that was like a large cage and had bamboo. I hope that our garden can look as good as some of the ones we saw, maybe not as crazy as the cage one but as far as our actual plants go I hope they will grow well. I am excited to get our plants started and see how they do!

3/29/12

Today in class we talked about needs assessments directed at specific communities. We also talked about food insecurity. We have talked about this in numerous other classes, however I feel that the Erin Brockovich clip I think really helped to drive the point home. She kept a lot of things to herself, she didn't ask for a lot of help, her cabinets were practically empty, her kitchen was unsanitary, she lied to her kids to make them feel more comfortable, and took them to get food while she didn't eat. These are all things that you expect that would take part in someones life who was food insecure but it was much different to see it illustrated.

First Day 3/27/12

Community nutrition is a set of activities designed to provide access to a adequate, healthful diet to a population living in a particular community or area. This could include nutrition education, health promotion, food programs, or preventative programs. Ideally it involves steps such as assessment to identify problems, planning to meet the communities nutrition needs, and implementation to develop solutions to reduce the problems.


 In this class I hope to learn more about the process of community nutrition. I have done many volunteer projects that are involved in community nutrition, however I feel like I need a better look at the big picture. I haven't really got to see what goes through a community health professionals thought process when developing strategies to improve the community, so I hope in this class I will be able to see more of that side of it.