An Assessment of Philadelphia's Nutritional Programming

Nutritional education programming is one of the primary methods used to combat obesity. Philadelphia has a network of nutritional programming organized through the school district’s EAT.RIGHT.NOW program and presented at a majority of Philadelphia’s public schools. Participation in a variety of nutritional education classes and conversations with their participants made apparent a gap that exists between the information taught by the programs and its use in practice. Participant observation in these classes, in addition to a series of interviews with nutrition educators, was conducted in order to determine the causes of this gap between knowledge and practice and to what extent cultural and social practices influence this gap. It was concluded that as taste preferences are culturally determined and socially bound, nutritional educators need to increase their access to students’ parents and also influence the accessibility of healthful foods in order to make a more immediate impact.