Pennsylvania FCCLA Members Impact Communities with Nutrition Education Projects

Sue Fisher, State Facilitator

Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), a Career and Technical Student Organization designed for students taking Family and Consumer Sciences classes, prepares family leaders by empowering youth to address the real-life situations and issues that interest and concern them. Engaged in meaningful, student-directed projects, members develop skills for life through character development, creative and critical thinking, interpersonal communications, practical knowledge, and career preparation. In the process, they learn to cooperate, take responsibility, develop leadership skills, and serve others.

Student Body is a national FCCLA peer education program that helps young people learn to “Eat Right, Be Fit and Make Healthy Choices.” The goals of the program are to help young people make informed, responsible decisions about their health and to provide youth with the opportunity to teach others and develop healthy lifestyles, as well as to develop communication and leadership skills.

The Pennsylvania FCCLA is a member of the Pennsylvania State Action for Healthy Kids Team and has the only student representative on the team. Through this partnership, five FCCLA chapters received grants last year to develop projects focusing on childhood obesity. A variety of methods were used to target parents in this outreach.

Family and Consumer Sciences education centers on the family, and the family is also a focal point of the FCCLA. Nutrition education is one of the areas included in the Pennsylvania Family and Consumer Sciences Academic Standards, and students develop projects in this subject to take their learning beyond the classroom into real-life situations.

In a recent survey taken for the purpose of compiling Best Practices in Nutrition Education and the Student Body program, FCCLA chapter advisers shared several leading projects related to nutrition.

Bethel Park High School FCCLA - Advisor, Jill Simpson
Students in the Advanced Foods classes prepare complete Thanksgiving dinners. Students also keep track of their food intake using various Web sites as resources. The students complete a diet analysis that reveals the nutrients (such as fat) of which they consume too much as well as which nutrients they lack. It is a real eye-opener for them.

Cambria Heights Senior High School FCCLA - Advisor, Debra Yablinsky
FCCLA members read a story about food to the elementary students during Read Across America Day. Before the story begins, FCCLA members offer a choice of carrots or a candy kiss to the elementary students. After the story ends, the elementary students need to jog in place for the amount of time that it takes to burn the calories in the snack they chose. The ones who selected carrots jog for six seconds. The children who selected a candy kiss jog for four minutes and thirty-five seconds. This leads to a discussion about calories and exercise.

Catasauqua Middle School- Advisor, Eugenia Emert
Incorporating science experiments into nutrition education has proven to be beneficial. Magnets extract iron shavings from dry cereal to demonstrate that minerals are added to fortified cereal. Using a paper bag to learn about hidden fats is also eye-opening. The paper bag absorbs the fat when selected food is rubbed on it.

Charleroi Area High School FCCLA - Advisor, Kathleen Funkhouser
Students share the nutrition information learned in Family and Consumer Sciences classes with younger children. The students also work closely with the school district food service director and have had great success in changing the school menu so that it is more healthy and enjoyable for all. The cafeteria staff has also reported an increase in business.

Jersey Shore Middle School FCCLA - Advisors, Nancy Jacobs and Linda Smith
The FCCLA students follow careful sanitization procedures when they are working in the foods laboratory. One will often find the FCCLA members snacking on apples from a local farmer at FCCLA meetings. Students have not only learned that their snack comes from the fruit group on the food guide pyramid, but they have also really enjoyed them!

Lebanon County Career and Technology Center, an Occupational Child Development FCCLA Chapter – Advisor, Sandra Klingler
In the STAR Event (an FCCLA competitive event) “Entrepreneurship” students investigate the Child Care Food Program. They create menus for one week that could be served in a family daycare whose operator wants to meet the nutrition guidelines of the USDA program.

Pocono Mountain East FCCLA- Advisor, Dorothy Rodite
The FCCLA chapter at Pocono Mountain East High School operates The Snack Shack as their main fundraiser with resounding success. Students request certain nutritious foods as a healthy alternative to vending machine fare. The Snack Shack now has regular customers, and students are often disappointed when products are sold out. Comments include “I've got to get here sooner,” “these taste delicious,” and “are you sure this is nutritious?!”

Titusville Middle School FCCLA - Advisor, Cynthia Sopher
At Titusville Middle School FCCLA, each student belongs to an advisory group where students interact with each other in positive ways through different activities planned by the advisory committee. The FCCLA chapter has one advisory period set aside each month to plan an FCCLA day. During National Pizza Month in October, the FCCLA day was devoted to a Pizza Collage contest. The advisory teams created the collages from materials and instructions prepared by the FCCLA members. The eighth grade Family and Consumer Sciences Nutrition Education class, the FCCLA Executive Council, and the Family and Consumer Sciences teacher judged the pizza collages using a rubric they designed. The pizza collages looked fantastic! The teachers remarked that the students loved the contest and worked as a team while talking about the foods that make pizza nutritious. 

West Forest Jr./Sr. High School FCCLA - Advisor, Mary Alyce Knauff
One FCCLA project in Student Body focused on sports nutrition, which was studied in the Family and Consumer Sciences class. The students created display boards about several key nutrients and prepared nutritious snacks suggested in Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Book. Samples of the nutritious snacks were served to students as they were ready to exit the cafeteria at lunchtime. The FCCLA members carried this learning further by preparing “recovery carb” brown bags (with explanations of recovery carbohydrates) for both the boy’s and girl’s basketball teams when they traveled to away games. The FCCLA chapter received countless positive responses from the entire project. Talking to students about nutrition through sports is a great motivator. 

Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America is unique among youth organizations because its programs are planned and run by members. It is the only career and technical in-school student organization with the family as its central focus. Participation in national programs and chapter activities helps members become strong leaders in their families, careers, and communities.