Study on Intergenerational Approaches to Nutrition Education Receives National Award

Matt Kaplan, Associate Professor, Penn State University

A team consisting of Penn State researchers Matthew Kaplan, Ph.D., Lynn James, M.S., R.D., L.D.N. and Nancy Ellen Kiernan Ph.D., received the 2006 “Program Excellence through Research Award” from the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences for their research on how youth, their parents and grandparents discuss issues related to eating healthfully (and unhealthfully). PA NEN members were given an early look at this research during a free interactive workshop held in September of 2005 (http://panen.psu.edu/Newsletter/fall05/fall05fft.htm).

The team’s research was published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior (2006, Vol. 38, pages 298-306) in an article entitled: “Intergenerational Family Conversations and Decision Making about Eating Healthfully.” Funding for the study was provided by Pennsylvania Nutrition Education TRACKS as part of USDA’s Food Stamp Program.

Families participating in this focus group study reported having excessive communication difficulties and requested help in finding ways to work together to attain a healthier family diet. For many of these families, the way they made decisions about food purchases and family eating practices left little room for meaningful discussion, let alone the ability to work together to figure out how to eat more healthfully. In such cases, it was usually the parent who acted in a unilateral, “authoritarian” manner, but occasionally it was the child who dominated discussions and aggressively worked to minimize parental involvement in making food-related decisions, a pattern the researchers labeled as “authoritarian childing.”

In contrast, it was found that in families with effective communication strategies, e.g., having frequent food-related conversations, parents effectively managed to avoid conflict in their food-related discussions and decision-making process by actively and proactively involving children in the process of meal planning, food shopping, and meal preparation.

Results from the study suggest that nutrition educators can play a meaningful role in helping families to discuss, define and achieve shared goals for eating healthfully. In this sense, there is a need for more nutrition education programs designed to provide children, parents, and grandparents from the sa me family joint opportunities to learn about, discuss, and act upon the sa me nutrition and health information. The underlying theoretical framework shows that family members are interdependent in their food-related behaviors; therefore, intervention efforts should seek to involve the entire family, enhance communication, and promote cooperation in the improvement of family eating practices.

Study results informed the development of two new intergenerational family nutrition education demonstration programs—FRIDGE and Family Fitness. Both programs, now in the piloting phase, include activities that enable family members to have non-adversarial conversations about food. All family members, including children, are viewed and treated as “partners” in their joint efforts to make positive behavior changes. Findings from the Family FitnessProgram indicate that students in grades three to five and their parents have demonstrated significantly improved family meal planning and preparation, healthy eating goal setting and agreement for eating healthy foods, increased student intake of fruits and whole grains, decreased intake of higher fat and sugar foods and drinks, and increased family and student physical activity.

For more information about the Family Fitness program, contact Lynn James at Penn State Cooperative Extension, Northumberland County, at lxj11@psu.edu or 570-988-3950. For more information about FRIDGE (“Food-Related Intergenerational Discussion Group Experiences”), contact Matt Kaplan at msk15@psu.edu or 814-863-7871.