Supporting food literacy among children and adolescents: Undergraduate students apply public health nursing principles in clinical practice.

Abstract

Effective public health nurses excel in partnership building and program planning to address priority health concerns, such as childhood obesity and disordered eating. Worldwide, children are at risk for low food and nutrition literacy with associated patterns of low fruit and vegetable consumption. This report focuses on the application of public health nursing principles by undergraduate nursing student teams in the design and delivery of food literacy interventions among a population of children and adolescents. Over a four-year time period, the cumulative intervention reach was 640 children/adolescents. Over 75 nursing students implemented the public health nursing process in support of food literacy, gaining skills across multiple practice domains. Lessons learned from academic-community partnerships to promote food literacy among children and adolescents have direct implications for undergraduate nursing education. Chief among these implications include the growing significance of integrating nutrition in the nursing curriculum and the need for scaffolding to support clinical application of interventions beyond health teaching to address broad determinants of health.