Thursday-Week10

It was a cold rainy day today. Our class met at a shelter near our garden and finished our needs assessment presentation. Our target audience were pregnant women. We focused on iron and folate supplement, and cultivated a garden consisting of broccoli, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, pimento peppers, radishes, white navy beans and pinto beans. After presenting group by group, we all moved to the garden and saw every group's work there. It was a really good end for this class. Every group's plow looked wonderful. Although this class is ended, my garden life may be just begin. I would like to think about planting crops myself some other day in future when I have opportunity. Thank Dr. Holben for letting me know community nutrition programs and little knowledge on gardening from this class!

I forgot to mention that on last Saturday, I visited Farm's Market on East State St., Athens, OH. It was very good to have such a experience. All veggetables and fruits were very fresh and organic grown. There were many nice people vending. I bought some peppers and bread. Although the Farm's Market is only twice per week, this special thing is really meaningful for humans' well being .

Tuesday-Week10

Today our class had a lunch together at a park on Ridge. For celebrating the end of this class, Dr. Holben serve us a dinner prepared by him and his wife. Almost all the foods were organic. Some vegetables were planted by the Holbens. It was a really wonderful dinner. I really like the taste of the whole wheat noodles, which was very similar to our chinese foods. And the other thing I need to mention is the dessert made by Dr. Holben. He told me that it was made of eggs, milk, and bread. I cannot remember the name but really like it! Very Yummy! Thank Dr. Holben and Mrs Holben. I am very appreciate the dinner.

At 3pm this afternoon, our group members met at Katie's apartment. We discussed the final project and figured out all stuff related to our presentation on thursday.

At the night this day, Katie transplanted our final plant--tomato and zucchini to our garden.

Week9--Thursday Class

Speaker: Dr. Holben

Today we had our last class in classroom for Community Nutrition. For the first part of the class, Dr. Holben and many our classmates communicated the opinions about the Extension lecture presented by Joyce Brown last Tuseday. We also shared our thoughts about dairy farm tour on this Tuesday.

For the second half of today's class, Dr. Holben showed us lots of useful websites posted on blackboard for us to know community nutrition better. All the links are about our community such as farmer's markets, gardening guides, CFI, ACE, and so forth.

I think this might be the end of the community nutrition class, but just a beginning for me to learn community life and gardening culture in America. There is definitely no such kind of class offered in my country. I think this class really helps me to know how to lead a better life, better nutrition, by our own hands.

We also made our plan for next week's lunch and presentation at the end.

Dairy Farm Tour

Activity: Dairy Farm Tour
Location: Holter Dairy 34425 Dairy Lane Pomeroy, Ohio 45769
Name of Agency: Holter Dairy Farm
Speakers:
Allison--Director of American Dairy Association, worker for "3-A-Day"
The Holters(grandparents, parents, and 2 Hotler sisters)--owners of the dairy farm















Planning, Evaluating. It was a wonderful experience today to know how milk is produced. The Holters introduced us the places where cows grow from babies to milk producers. All animals in the farm are treated nicely. I was very surprised that a cow which was just 2 days old looked so big. I noticed that the place for the youngest group in this farm seems concern the health of cows very much. There was a plate outside the house signed "keeping away from disases". Different age group of cows in this farm are provided different diet. Those milk cows who are 15 to 18 months old are offered two kinds of forage which contain 14% protein and 20% protein, respectively. The farmers value nutrient supplement very much. I observed that the forage for cows is blended by hard corn, millet sprays, and hay. They add more vitamins, calcium, and magnesium for pregnant cows. They provide enough nutritious foods for cows every day, but can hardly measure how much exactly each cow consume. People in this farm have information for every cow in their computer. It is significant to manage the cows by using computer because there are 180 cows need to be feed every day. An interesting thing is that there was a equipment connecting with computer which could know how much weight the cows get when they are eating. Additionally, we visit a liquid manure storage which was built in 1988 by the government.
In the end, I am very pleasure to get a chance to step into the core of the dairy farm--milk house! The milking apparatus, tank for cleaning milk were in front of us! One of the Halter sisters explained the whole process how milk is get from the cows to milk that can be drinked and shipped. At last, we had ice cream, souvenirs provided by the Holter's Farm and "3-A-Day", more important, we had bottled milk made by them.
Roles of RDs: From today's experience, I noticed another important role of dietitians. Allison is a dietitian who works with Mike for the program of "3-A-Day". She plays important roles in the dairy farm such as recommending and directing nutritious forage, formulating nutrients for differenct age groups, and publicizing the idea of "3-A-Day" through marketing of dairy products.

After this tour, the important function of dietitians in food industry draw my attention. Rather than nutrition programs of NGOs or government, food factories are more practical and elementary places for RDs to be helpful.

Thursday-Ohio State University, Extension

Speaker: Joyce Brown, Extension educator
Type of Agency: Federal Program
Mission/Purpose: The chief goal of this program is to improve food seurity of people in community. On the other hand, to strengthen people's lives and communities through research-based educational programming.
Funding Source: Federal, state, and local monies.
Program planning, monitoring, evaluating: Their programs include:

• Family and Consumer Science,
• 4-H,
• Community Development,
• Agriculture and Natural Resources.
  

OSU Extension Community Development educators and specialists enhance communities by working with business communities, current and emerging community leaders, as well as elected and appointed officials. Monitoring and evaluating of the program is conducted through evaluations forms, also known as EEET. Program, program development, teaching materials, and the educator are all evaluated.

Role of RDs: According to the speaker, RDs can play a role at the state level or as a program assistant at the local level. But the speaker said some of their stuff are dietitians but they are not required to be. They generally do not like people with a nutrition background as a program assistant though due to their terminology and their science background.

The speaker today seems dislike dietetians and her emotion was out of control for a while. I was a little upset for the atmosphere of class. However, she did give us some useful message and website sources about this federal program anyway. What really interested me most was that they way they educate adults. She told us they just educate kids and let the kids to educate their parents. This is reversed to the classic teaching mode but really seems more effective. As a foreigner, I have no experience from any program of this federal project, yet I would like to believe "extension"is a good program for kids in the U.S.

Tuesday-Ohio Board of Dietetics

Name of Speaker: Kay Mavko, Executive Director
Name of Agency/Program: Ohio Board of Dietetics
Type of program and Funding: All funding are gathered through fees for members. ($60 unlimited permit, $24 one time permit.)
Purposes and Mission: The mission of the Ohio Board of Dietetics is to effectively protect the public by regulating the practice of dietetics through licensure, and by fairly and consistently enforcing the laws and rules governing nutritional practices.

Objectives of Dietetic Licensure include:

• provide working knowledge of Ohio dietitian licensure law.
• review requirements for licensure including limited permits, initial licenses, and license renewal
• review relevant exemptions
• review OBD enforecement and complaint handling.
  

Role of RDs: RDs act as promotors or resource for a law in consideration, etc.
Program Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation: They do not offer any special programs, but focus on laws and regulations for practicing dietetics or those who practice under "dietitian like" names. For monitoring and evaluation, they look at the feedback of a law/regulation and obverse how the behavior that the law/regulation is focused on has changed.

The lady spoke today has 14 years' work experience on this, she also has variety of practices. She told us how an individual could become dietition legally and provided FAQs about the dietitian licensure law in Ohio. Even though the topic of this class is not a classic nutrition program, I think it is really a good class and very important for all of us. Knowledge from this class could be regarded as a useful resource for us all the time if only we are aim to be a dietition in future.

Week7-Thursday

On thursday, we use the first half of the class time to engage in the yearly scholar presentation of our university in convocation center. We had free pizza as well as beverage and see posters made by students in our school. It is really a good experience to know so many research directions and researchers through a fair.
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For the second half of that class, Marjorie gave us a lecture about Food Pentry in Ohio. They limit healthy food for grant. Monthly donation is about $115 per month. Marjorie mentioned Lisa, a important lady in this program.

Name of speaker: Marjorie Vardell
--Second-year Graduate Student in School of Human and Consumer Sciences of Ohio University

The purpose of this program is to provide food and assistance to those people live in community in southeast Ohio.

Funding Source: 3 churches, and the Sisters of St. Joseph grant

Role of Nutrition Professionals：no RDs in this organization, all people work for this program are volunteers

What impressed me most is that everyone work for this program is not paid. There are 15 to 20 volunteers there. I really hope that one day in future I can be a volunteer in such kind of organization and contribute myself to the society.
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For the garden work, our group decide to transplant our cute veggetables to the garden on Sunday 11 am.

Women, Infants & Children (WIC)

Name of Agency/Program: Women, Infants & Children (WIC)

Speaker: Jody Shriver
Director of Athens and Perry County

Type of Program: Nutrition Education Program

Funding source: Federally funded by USDA, each county applies for a grant annually through the Ohio Department of Health (ODH).

Purpose/Mission: To improve the health status and prevent health problems among Ohio's at-risk women, infants and children.

Role of Nutrition professional: WIC provides nutrition education, breastfeeding education and support; supplemental, highly nutritious foods such as milk, eggs, cheese, juice, cereal, beans, peanut butter and iron-fortified infant formula; referral to prenatal and pediatric health care and other maternal and child health and human service programs (examples: Head Start, Medicaid and Food Stamps). Nutrition professionals is in the charge of providing counseling for individuals and suggestions for community. WIC was set up in 2004 in Athens county. Nutrition professionals in this agency do not diagnose, they just provide nutrition counselling, and nursing service for moms. Dietitians give moms education and tell what they should do. Additionally, nutrition professionals have to make sure handouts are all current and keep updating. So the authorized foods on list are changing all the time. Another fuction of RDs is that they encourage people to choose organic foods. Farmer's market and groceries are used as intermediums to achieve this purpose. WIC often provides coupons for people in community. Take last year for example, 437 books ($15 each book) of coupons were distributed in Kroger.


Tips about Nutrition is provided online by WIC in Ohio and is as following:

• Stock up on a variety of healthy foods. Let your family members choose a snack that sounds good to them from what is offered.
• Eat together as a family. Talk and enjoy each other’s company rather than sitting in front of the television.
• Don’t give up!. It is important to offer your child a new food several times before he/she may choose to like it.
• Talk to your WIC health professional about portion sizes and foods that are right for your child at his/her current stage of life.
• Visit your local WIC clinic for healthy foods and recipe ideas.
  

I think this is a stable and reliable source for people to get nutrition education and support because it is funded by the government. Although the coupons distributed in last year was only about $6,000 in total, it is helpful and meaningful for people in Athens community.

Week6-Thursday

Instructor: Dr. Holben
Activity: lecture-Chapter17. How to develop a nutrition education program.

Today we had a lecture in class about how to develop a nutrition education program. After giving some basic ideas and principles for doing this, Dr. Holben inspired us by taking two examples and help us know how to write a purpose for a program.

I think this lecture is very significant and practical for nutrition students. Because one of major roles of nutritionists or dietitians is improving awareness of nutrition among population. Changing behaviors of targeted population is thought to be the primary task of a program.

After learning this class, we will properly know what to do exactly if we want to promoting the nutrition status of the population, if we want to develop a nutrition education program.

Week 6 Tuesday

On this tuesday, we continued discussing the agency assignment in class. Each student made speeches in the class just summarized every angency/program very briefly. My topic is "Fruit and Veggies-More Matter". It was the unique program that aim to encourage people to eat vegetables and fruits. We finished discussing all agency/program assignments before 1:15pm.

For the second half of the class, Dr. Holben had to attend a meeting thus he left. Jessica, a graduate student majors in family study, came into our classroom and hoped to do a survey. Since my mom is leaving in China, the survey was only for those live in the U.S., I cannot helf her, then I left.

For our garden, Katie and Laura are keeping our plants at their apartments. I am just waiting for the opportunity of transplanting.

Disscussion for Agency assignment

On Thursday, we used the class time to discuss our "Agency assignments". All students made handouts for the agency assigned and had sent them to their classmates before class already. Every one spoke in the class talked about the type of program, purpose, funding source, history, role of nutrition professionals, and evaluation for the URL according to CARS. Dr. Holben explored deeper on the topics after everyone summarized. So we had more comprehensive understanding on each program. Because of limited time, I, just ike some other people in the class, did not gain a opportunity to talk about my agency. However, we will continue next Tuesday.

From this class, I am very glad to know so many food assistance programs in the U.S. It is very impressive that U.S. has so many programs to help their citizens maintain good nutrition status and fight against food insecurity. The programs in the U.S. include those conducted by goverment or by NGOs. Comparing with other China, U.S. has good awareness of and mature for promoting nutrition status already. I think this is very worthy for China to learn. Because in China, government pay more attentions to food safety, less attentions to food insecurity. Food assistanc programs which aim to promote people's nutrition status are rare. Knowledge learned from "Community Nutrition"class is very significant for me to understand the nutrition care system in the U.S. Thank Dr. Holben.

Gardening Experience

Garden Tour
Location: Garden

Our team opened up the wasteland this afternoon between 12 to 13pm. The picture is our job today! We are group C. This is my first experience of gardening. It was very fun but I feel very tired now.

Later at 6:30pm, I arrived the CFI's "gardening101 workshop", presented by Lisa. She told us lots of tips for gardening. For example, blueberries should be planted in acid soil, tomatos need more space because they are very easy to get lots of diseases. Providing opportunities as well as knowledge for people live in Athens to garden by themselves are really helpful and thoughtful.

American Dairy Association-Midwest

Speaker: Michael Sieminski, RD, LD
Nutrition Communications Manager

Program: American Dairy Association

Purpose: On behalf of US dairy farmers, drive increased sales of, and demand for, U.S. dairy products and ingredients.

Funding source: Dairy Farmers in Ohio; West Virginia & Dairy Check fund.




National Dairy Council: Leader in nutrition research, nutrition education, childhood nutrition and communication since 1995.





3-A-Day of Dairy:
was created as a simple reminder for families to get 3 daily servings of milk, cheese or yogurt for stronger bones and better bodies. Dairy provides nine essential nutrients, including calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, vitamins A, D and B12, riboflavin, and niacin (niacin equivalents).



5 aspects about what they do:
I. Nutrition Affair
It plays an important role in protecting 3 and promoting 3. The aim is to protect good food, and support for 3 servings/day; to improve bone health and avoid osteoporosis; DASH Diet; Child Nutrition; lactose intolerance, et al.
II. Schools Marketing
Expanding breakfast, fuel up to play, new look of school milk, and refuel with chocolate milk are the five programs for this.
III. Marketing and Business Development
Marketing and business development serve as resource to retailers, and increase dairy's availability in food services.
IV. Industry Image & Relations
The goal for this is to maintain and build public confidence in dairy industry including its farmers and products; share the value of and build support for the checkoff program.
V. Communications and Media
The most important thing for nutrition message is to know the audience. The best way to advertise depends on different populations. Language used in nutrition survey should be straightforward, understood, and focused. Lecture or presentation, demonstrations, videos, games, role playing, and case studies are common ways for delivering the message.

Role of RD:
Form partnerships with other stakeholders; develop marketing tools and handouts for consumers.

Three servings of dairy foods provide a powerful package of nine essential nutrients —including calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, vitamins D, A, B12, riboflavin and niacin (niacin equivalents)— that help keep bones strong and bodies healthy. Mr. Sieminski has 4 yrs marketing and advertising experience. As a dietitian, he acts different from other traditioanl dietitians. From his experience, I find that there are many ways to help people keep healthy. Conducting beneficial programs and introducing nutrition knowledge to public by media may be more siginificant. Large population who do not have time, opportunity or awareness to see a dietitian could also benefit by those dietitians like Mike.

Agriculture and Food security in China.

On tuesday, we had a disscussion about the garden tour last week at the beginning of the class. Actually I have never grown anything before. Because I was born and grow up in a big city of China, the majority of opportunities I had for knowing how vegetables grow happen during the time I took train to travel when I was very young. My mom told me what are corn, wheat, sorghum, millet, rice, eggplant, cabbage and so forth. Thanks to our neighbor when we were living in bungalow 20 years ago, I got another way to know the growth of vegetables. She cut out a garden plot which was only about 4 or 5 square meters in the area; cultivated tomatos, chilies, sunflowers, eggplants, and daylilies. but what I can see in China now are numerous lagescale greenhouses surrounding busy cities.

Nowadays in China, the overwhelming majority of people live in buildings and do not have time nor place to gardening themselves. And as is known to all, China is a country with a large population but less arable land, only 7%of the world's arable land but have to feed 1/5 of the world's population. Since 1978, Chinese government issued the household contract responsibility system; cancelled the state market monopoly of agricultural products, and of price controls over most of agricultural and ancillary products; allowed farmers to develop diversified business and set up township enterprises. Besides policy, the other contribution to the success of conquering hunger in China is the development of science and agriculture. The research achievements in hybrid rice is worth mentioning. Yuan Longping, internationally regarded as the "father of hybrid rice", rewrote the history of rice cultivation in China in the second half of the 20th century.

Hybrid rice is the first technology that is exported to the U.S. in 1970s. By using this technology, output of rice was tripled. More than 40 countries in the world are using this technology today. We know that food security concern two aspects: enough foods and nutrious foods. Thanks to hybrid rice, enough foods is guaranteed. Another problem is how to deal with nutrition prolems. Causations for malnutrition in China are highly related to residing location and income level. In western poor provinces and rural areas, micronutrient deficiency is common; in urban areas, negative effects from junk food is the main reason for food insecurity. Chinese people never stop researching and improving on agriculture. Agricultural biotechnology is a way of reducing micronutrients deficiencies. Levels of certain micronutrients are higher in biofortified crops. China has shown greater speed in the development and commercial introduction of transgenic plant varieties, though, as of 2001, it had been unwilling to allow the sale of transgenic plant foods directly to consumers. The Chinese have made efforts to create crops with resistance to disease, drought, and insect pests. Such improvements could enable China to expand its supply of arable land. China has officially moved from being an international aid recipient (1980-2005, April), and become a donor nation, now that it no longer requires assistance from the United Nations' World Food Program (WFP). China was the third largest food donor in 2005, accounted for more than half of the overall increase in food donations in 2005. The successful story of China proved the words of Chairman Deng-"science and technology is the first productivity". That is to say, science and technology are the essential things need to be developed firstly to guarantee food security. I don't know if there are also these kinds of greenhouse for veggetables. I think there should be, but not usual compare to China. In China, the prices of vegetables are about only 1/10 of those of meats for the same weight. But it is not the same satuation in the U.S. That is to say, Chinese people are more freely to eat vegetables so that more vitamins and minerals could be intaken. In the U.S., people who do not have enough money to spend on foods always choose meats rather than veggetables, because meats, in the same weight, have much higher calories and fat than veggetables. This will absolutely cause obesity and other health problems related to food insecurity. My point is that coordinating the agriculture market, reducing the price of vegetables, producing more veggetables, seem to be most important, basic and significant.

For the second section of class on tuseday, we had a lecture from Dr.Holben about the measurement of food insecurity. 18-item core module is a survey-based classical method to measure food insecurity in the U.S. since 1995. It is conducted by CDC of the U.S. There are 18 questions in the survey. This is really a significant way to control and supervise the nutrtion status of American people. The responses to this 18-item food security survey module were used to classify households into 3 categories of food security status:
1. Food secure: households that show no or minimal evidence of food insecurity..
2. Food insecure without hunger: food insecurity is evident in the household concerns and in adjustments to household food management including reduced-quality diets. Little or no reduction in the household members’ food intake was reported.

3. Food insecure with hunger: the food intake for adults and children in the household has been reduced to the extent that they have repeatedly experienced the physical sensations of hunger.

.

On the same day, I also noticed that the CFI placed an announcement in the fourth floor of baker center. Nothing could be more important than foods to human.

Garden Tour

Thursday, April 16
Garden Tour

Instructor: Dr. Holben, Patty
Location: Athens Community Garden



It was really a nice day. Maria, Yang and I arrived the Athens Community Garden at about 12:15pm. Yang and I met a very nice lady-Mary Smith. She was gardening there and told us lots about gardening vegetables. We recognized strawberry, green garlic, and learned how to eat rhubarb--a kind of fruit we have never heard of before. The picture above is rhubarb.

At about 12:30pm, everybody arrived and Dr. Holben began to introduce the garden. This garden is mainly sponsored by Community Food Initiatives (CFI)
Dr. Holben also introduced us lots of vegetables growing in the garden, showed the plot we are expected to finish our final project on, and assigned the land occupation of each group.

The purpose of this program, as Patty said, is to get more people garden themselves and growing their own foods. Patty was another important instructor that day. She was graduated from Ohio University last year from Environmental Biology. Now she is an assistant manager of community garden. All products growing in this garden are organic. Horse manure is used as fertilizer. Free tools for gardening are provided. The garden is divided into five zones and each zone has its independent water system. People come here to garden must obey some rules to ensure the healthy of vegetables. No smoking and washing hands beofore come are required. Only $35 for individual gardener, $50 for group, more than $100 for business. That is to say, individuals are encouraged to take this exciting experience. 10% of whole production is required to donate back to CFI. This is just a little rewarding to CFI to thank the opportunity it give us.

This program is meaningful because it not only help people experience the wonderful life, but also important for food security. All foods are organic, so people can eat safe and nutritious food by laboring themselves. Wow, a old Chinese saying come to me suddenly, "earn our own living by our own hands, we will be well-fed and well-clothed."(Mao Zedong, 1939). Classical philosophy of life will never go out of fashion. I really hope I could have a garden some day in future so that I could enjoy the happiness of gardening as well as feed myself well.

Food Insecurity in the U.S.

Tuesday, April14
Instructor: Dr. Holben


We had a class on food insecurity in the U.S. this tuesday. Dr. Holben provided us an overview of food insecurity status in the U.S. Food security could be defined as: "access by all people, at all times to sufficient food for an active and healthy life...[and]includes at a minimum: the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways." I noticed that the USDA has recently published the latest US hunger statistics: 35 million people live in households that have either "very low or low food security". To put it more simply and bluntly, 12% of the total US population doesn't have enough to eat.


Combining with videos that Dr. Holben showed us in the class, I am really astonished by the fact. Some videos from news report showed that lots of people in Ohio are living in poverty and food insecurity. I noticed that long sequences were waiting for the aids from Food Bank. Those poor people often show up with all their families. Maybe foods for aids are assigned in personal distribution--the more people show up, the more foods a family can get. However, the foods gained by people from aids could hardly satisify their nutrition needs. I have ever had a opportunity to be a volunteer for Food Bank in Logan, Ohio. I observed that foods we prepared in Food Bank were mostly cheap foods that not nutritious. Crackers, canned meat, canned corn, and peanut butter are still deeply kept in my mind. Poor people who do not have enough money to eat well are those do not have good job and high income. A poor family in the video cried because of low income and hunger.

Erin Brockovich, which is a movie acted by Julia Roberts, described the food insecurity problem exist in the household of a divorced women with no job, bad sanitation, little saving, and 2 kids. Through the life of Erin, the importance of work is attentioned again.

Health and Nutrition Policy-Part 2

Instructor: David H. Holben

On this Thursday, firstly we continued to study the Nutrition Policy in the U.S. We mainly studied the process of policy making. To give us deep impression about how a nutrition policy can be made, Dr. Holben played a interesting cartoon video. Policy making, as was said in the class, is the process by which authorities decide which actions to take to address a problem or set of problems. The policy cycle explained details about this. Problem definition and agenda setting, formulate alternative, policy adoption, policy impletation, policy evaluation, then policy termination or a new cycle again till the policy can be made. I have never heard of nutrition policy making before, so this class interested me a lot. And I am very honor to know the process of policy making or something about law making in America through a vivid way-cartoon. I have learned a little about policy in the U.S. when I was in high school in China, but nutritional policy is really a new term to me. I think public health and policy making are comprehensive and perfect in America. As a nutrition student who might be step into the society soon, knowledge in major courses is not enough; how to involved in the society, how to utilize the significance of knowledge I learned in university, understanding the process how the whole system is conducted are equally important.

Secondly, community needs assessment was disscussed. The steps of community needs assessment are very important: 1. define the problem; 2. set the parameters of the assessment; 3. collect data; 4. analyze or interpret data; 5. share the findings; 6. set priorities; 7. choose a plan of action. This is related to our final project of this course. And our group, after discussion, found out a leader to guide us on gardening. We also initially decided to take the pregant women as our target population for research. More details about the final project will be disscussed in the following weeks. I am looking forward to having a big harvest for my first gardening experience and having a really awesome community nutrition project with my group members.

Health and Nutrition Policy-Part 1

Instructor: David H. Holben.

On this Tuesday, we had lecture on health and Nutrition policy (Chapter6) in class. Dr. Holben introduced what is nutrition policy, relationships among Nutrition Research, Monitoring, and Policy making, and NNMPPR. Many offices are dedicated to national nutrition policy, such as Healthy People 2010, CDC, USDA, FDA, and so forth.

The U.S. Congress passed legislation (PL101-445) that established the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Program (NNMRRP) in 1990. NNMRRP is the set of activities that provides regular information about the contribution that diet and nutritional status make to the health of the U.S. population and about the factors affecting diet and nutritional status. The activities of NNMRRP are jointly coordinated by USDA and the DHHS. Today, the NNMRRP includes more than 50 surveillance activities that monitor and evaluate the health and nutritional status of the U.S. population.

The goals of NNMRRP includes: 1. provide the scientific foundation for the maintenance and improvement of the nutritional status of the U.S. population and the nutritional quality and healthfulness of the national food supply; 2. collect, analyze, and disseminate timely data on the nutritional and dietary status of the U.S. population, the nutritional quality of the food supply, food consumption patterns, and consumer knowledge and attitudes concerning nutrition; 3. indentify high-risk groups and geographical areas, as well as nutrition-related problems and trends, to facilitate prompt implementation of nutrition intervention activities; 4. establish national baseline data and develop and improve uniform standards, methods, criteria, policies, and procedures for nutrition monitoring; 5. provide data for evaluating the implications of changes in agricultural policy related to food production, processing, and distribution that may affect the nutritional quality and healthfulness of the U.S. food supply.

As is described above, NNMRRP plays a very significant role in coordinating the relationships between nutritional and dietary status of the U.S. population and scientific research. Knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of population may reflect the possible causations for food insecurity. And suggestions from nutritionists based on the nutritional status of population could help solve the problem. Another example is between nutrient intake and supplement use. Nutritionists collect data about nutrient intake and nutritional status of population by using surveys of the program. After analized the data, suggestions about special nutrient supplement will come up. For instance, if people in a certain community appear to have more osteoporosis than usual, calcium supplement should be fortified.

April 2-A Glimpse into Community Dietetics

Today, two speakers came into our class. The first is Francie Astrom, who works for Wellworks at Ohio University. She explained the role of the registered dietitian (RD) working in a wellness program. This program is supported partially by University wellness funds, and primarily by merberships fee. The aims of this program include providing wide variety of programming, helping people to reach optimal health, improving people's health status, and reducing risks of diseases. Types of services and programs include fitness center (Ping Center in OU), massage, personal trainers, wellness coaching, worksite wellness, blood pressure and cholesterol screening, and other screening for preventing certain diseases such as cancer, response to requests, nutrition programming, body composition, heart works, family and coummunity programs such as pumpkin fest, and risk reduction. Any OU faculty or staff member and their dependents, OU retirees and their dependents could join the program for free. Community members and corporate members could join the program at low prices.

Nutrition programming at the wellworks is very important. As Francie said, the RDs are integral to success of wellness program, they provide date nutrition information such as diet magazines, they review and interpret current literature. The Wellworks program provides both individual nutrition services and group nutrition activities. For individual nutrition services, individuals could get ntrition education or counseling at very low prices ($15 for 30min), easy access (convenient parking), disordered eating, computerized dietary analysis. For group nutrition activities, Wellworks provides presentations to offices, departments and corporate members, cooking and nutrition education programs, grocery store tours, and Five-A-Day the wellworks way.

I would like to be a volunteer someday because joining the program could bring lots of benefits to me. It could broad my understanding of the role of nutrition and health promotion, give me chances to know variety of individuals and make contribution to nutrition education among individuals or groups, deepen my knowledge of nutrient content of foods throughout dietary recommendations. I believe that practicing is the best way to understand knowledge I learn from class.

And "wellworks" program is very helpful for keeping OU faculty and their family healthy, because it is totally free for them. But one limit of this program is that it may miss lots of undergraduates. As reported by Francie, this program is not totally free for undergraduate students, for those who do not have adequate money for living, this program may make them lose the good opportunity to get better health.


The second speaker was a very beautiful young lady-Heidi Anderson. She states that she is not a traditional RD. She works in Wellwork program of OU now. Her work is focusing on health coaching, health education, coordinating presentaions, marketing, quarterly newsletter, and planning in groups. I think she really act more like a epidemiologist than RD. Her education background explained this-she is a MPH. Well, this is so similiar to me. I was major in public health for undergraduate, and stepped into nutrition area now. In my opinion, nutrition is a branch study of public health. What nutritionists do everyday are mostly what epidemiologist should do. Nutritionists play very important roles in controlling diseases, especially in the primary and secondary preventions. For example, telling people how to prevent diseases by adjusting their diets before getting diseases is primary prevention, screening cancer, obesity by testifying blood pressure and cholesterol of potential patients before syptoms appear is secondary prevention. Planning, organizing, directing, controlling, coordinating are five functions of epidemiological managers and administrators. Heidi acts mostly like a epidemiological manger in her daily work. I got evoked by Heidi's career experience. I believe my education background in public health could benefit me much in my nutrition career in future.

First Day of Community Nutrition

It was really a wonderful start for the class on Tuesday, March 31. I think community nutrition is a study about acessing people's health and nutrition status in some certain communities, recording the data into certain databases of the government, and providing suggestions for their diets basing on the results. Community nutrition is very useful and meaningful in primariy prevention and secondary prevention of public health field. And dietitians play a significant way in people's daily lives.

I hope I could learn how to help people maintain their well being in communities as a nutritionist, what nutrition inventions could be taken and their roles of controlling chronic diseases.

In this class, a pleasant surprise to me is that I will participate in gardening. I'm looking forward to having a big harvest with my parterners at the end of this awesome quarter!