The study of healthy human nutrition includes topics related to socioeconomics and food security.
I am so pleased to have Registered Dietitian, Tim O’Neal present this video about supplemental nutrition and shopping on a budget. The talk includes a description of the project and instructions. Submit your written work to the Turn-It-In submission link by the due date listed below.
Written Project Instructions:
1) Click on the “Project A” link below. Watch the lecture video.
2) Thoroughly research a government supplemental food program. You are welcome to use ANY government supplemental nutrition program! It does NOT have to be one like CalFresh that gives money to use at the grocery store. There are dozens of other available federal nutrition programs including: Meals on Wheels, National School Lunch/ Breakfast Program, EFNEP, CACFP, CSFP, WIC, Senior Farmers’ Market, etc. Please be creative.
3) Research the hypothetical eligibility for that program. Each program should have a list of guidelines on their website regarding: age, eligibility, situation. Please include those in your write-up. You do NOT have to actually apply for any program and you may NOT actually be eligible. THAT IS PERFECTLY OK. Please still discuss the food allotment distributed by that particular program for one week.
4) Write up what one week on that particular program would look like. How much is one weekly allotment? How much food or money would you receive? How many meals? What foods can you buy or not buy? For example, if you were following Meals on Wheels, how many meals do you get a day? How many calories or nutrients or food groups are required per meal? What are the mandated nutrition guidelines for each meal? As a second example, if you chose NSLP, what would a week of school lunches look like on that program? What are the federal requirements for that program to receive funding? If you chose WIC, what kinds of foods could you prepare with one week of WIC checks? What are the different eligibility packages? What is the purpose of these different packages?
Discuss the following points: What foods were allowed? What foods were not allowed? Did you have to leave out certain foods you would normally have for the week? Were you still hungry after meals? Does your program address ways to overcome this? What were the options for the week? Were there different options? Are there any federal guidelines for that program? What were the meals like? Were they nutritious? Were they tasty or bland? Was their variety?
5) Write 2 pages or more, on your program of choice and your findings. Discuss the program you chose, including what a weekly menu would look like for the program. Please, also include your experience with that program. What did you learn from this activity? Had you ever heard of that nutrition program before? How has this changed your view of supplemental nutrition programs in general? Was there a budget component? How hard was it to stay in budget? What did you like/ what didn’t you like about this program and the foods allowed? How could this nutrition program be improved? Did you think the program was nutritionally sound?
**NOTE: We are looking for written content only. Large charts or lengthy grocery lists are unnecessary and will NOT be included in your page count. Points will be deducted if you have less than 2 pages of written content.**
6) Standard formatting, please. Times New Roman font. Size 12. Double Spaced. Please upload a Microsoft Word submission ONLY! Do NOT submit with Google Docs or OneDrive, etc. Turnitin does NOT accept these web-based formats and it will cause trouble when you try to submit.
7) Please include works cited with as much information from the supplemental nutrition program website you researched. APA or MLA citations are fine. DO NOT COPY AND PASTE ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS INTO YOUR ESSAY AND SIMPLY PLACE A CITATION. THIS STILL COUNTS AS PLAGIARISM!! All submissions will be checked for plagiarism via Turnitin. All submissions that return a 30% match or greater will be given an automatic 50% deduction.
