Nutrition – US Army Europe – Fueling the Future
Hello Team! I just wanted to update you all on the progress of my nutrition initiative here in Germany. For my practicum work, I had a small idea of doing a nutrition intervention at our local on-post elementary school. The Commanding General of US Army Europe, LTG Hertling, caught wind of my ideas and turned this intervention into a large scale nutrition intervention that we hope will go Army wide! We are calling the intervention “Fueling the Future”.
LTG Hertling began an initiative called “Fueling the Team” a few years ago. The initiative is aimed at getting our soldiers to eat better and gain a better understanding of the right way to fuel their bodies. He started the “Go For Green” program in our Army dining facilities that labels the food as Red (not good for fueling), Yellow (use caution), and Green (good for fueling). The program has been a success. By creating “Fueling the Future” and sending the message of good nutrition to our military children, we hope to create stronger, healthier military families.
The children in our Department of Defense schools will be receiving monthly (twice per month or more) nutrition lessons in the class room. These lessons could be math, science, English, etc. lessons with a nutrition focus. Thus the lessons still meet a specific education standard but are about nutrition. There will also be monthly activities like commissary (grocery store) field trips, fitness classes (like Zumba), and physical training with soldiers that will reinforce the message of the importance of good nutrition and physical activity. The parents of the students received a Nutrition Parent Resource Guide at the start of the school year. The guide I created has specific nutrition information based on age, fun recipes, budget friendly shopping guides, and physical activity suggestions. The school year was kicked off in a big way with a Wellness Assembly attended by LTG Hertling. His wife, Sue Hertling, did a short fitness session with the children and then we headed out to the track for a “Walk with the General”. The local commissary provided fresh fruit and water for the children after the walk. Parents were invited to the assembly as well. It was a big success!
I distributed a Nutrition and Physical Activity Questionnaire at the start (well, kind of the start – October!) of the school year. It took a bit of time to get approval from the Department of Defense Education Activity and from the Army research branch. The school nurse also collected BMI data at the start of the school year. Our hope is that by increasing the amount of nutrition education the students receive and by repetitively hearing the message of the importance of good nutrition and physical activity, that the amount of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and water the children consume will increase, intake of processed foods will decrease, and the amount of physical activity will increase. We also hope to see a change in BMI.
The “Fueling the Future” initiative has now spread to two more schools in the area and we hope that more will join in. Please see the links below for some of the media coverage that has followed our initiative.
Nicole Leth
Fueling the Future coverage:
Stars & Stripes story on page 4 and online
http://www.stripes.com/dodds-students-urged-to-make-healthy-choices-1.187250
Stars & Stripes YouTube video
USAREUR Website (will also be published to the Army website)
http://www.eur.army.mil/news/2012/features/08232012-fueling-program.htm
Also a news release to be published today. Both the article and release provided to garrisons for community papers.
Social media
Multiple posts on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr resulting in more than 100 likes, nearly 20 shares, and 110 photo views
Spotlight on USAREUR to begin airing tomorrow: https://portal.eur.army.mil/sites/ocpa/AudioVisualCenter/OCPA%20Spots%20For%20Review/FtF%20Spotlight_1.wmv
Stand-To!
http://www.army.mil/standto/archive/issue.php?issue=2012-08-30
http://www.army.mil/article/86394/U_S__Army_Europe_kicks_off_campaign_to_enlist_community_in__Fueling_the_Future_/
US Army Europe Spotlight:
US Army Mainpage
http://www.army.mil/article/88346/Heidelberg__Wiesbaden_events_mark_steps_forward_for__Fueling_the_Future__program/