Tag Archives: Cooperative Extension

Nutrition Education in Cooperative Extension

1 Reply

I have been working this summer with the Denton County Office of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. I have helped teach cooking classes for people with diabetes and some 4-Hers as they completed their “travels” in Italy and France during a cultual foods series. We also presented a nutrition workshop to area child care providers.

I also helped teach the Back to the Basics Series for the Better Living for Texans series, which is designed to help low-income families improve their nutrition and food safety as well as get the most out of their food assistance dollars.

I am also planning a “culinary nutrition education” series for the BLT classes and 4-H groups that will incorporate developing food preparation skills with nutrition education.

Dining with Diabetes

1 Reply

We’ve started an evening class at the Center at Spring Street. Last Thursday about 12 people came for the introduction and registration. I helped people do A1c tests and also used the blood pressure machine. As a dietitian and diabetes educator, I don’t usually touch much more than an hand or finger of clients. To do BPs, I felt like I had to get all up in their armpits to wrap the cuff around at the right place! So many people had such large upper arms, it was good we had 2 cuff sizes. Not sure how accurate the readings were, many said they were higher than usual, but I guess we’ll control for operator error if I do it again in the fall at the final class.
August 12th is the final class for my first group. Looking forward to seeing them all and hoping to see progress when we re-measure A1c, BP, and WC. I’ll analyze the data for my presentation. August 5th I travel to Penn State main campus where the Cooperative Extension main nutrition office is and meet with Julie Cooper who manages all the data from the DWD programs all over the state. I’ll also meet with my supervisor, Jill and she will complete the paperwork for this practicum. Everything is just moving along nicely, what a relief!