Impact of Culturally Competent Nutrition Education on Healthy Habit Attitudes in Refugee and Immigrant Children

Purpose. Minority children are disproportionately impacted by physical and mental health conditions. Nutrition and exercise can enhance growth and improve stress coping ability. However, middle and high school students in the United States receive less than 8 hours of nutrition education per year. Nutrition is also under-emphasized in medical education. The “Engage with Wellness” lifestyle medicine curriculum sought to increase adolescents’ health knowledge and improve attitudes towards healthy habits through a medical student-created and -taught curriculum. Setting. The program took place weekly at a community-based after-school program for teenagers mainly from Nepal and Bhutan. Intervention. After 30 weeks, participants evaluated aspects of the curriculum on a Likert scale and with free-text responses. Outcomes. The program had 74 unique participants. The average number of classes attended was 5 (range 1-10). Students rated the helpfulness of class topics as 4.38/5. Most strongly agreed that healthy foods come from different cultures (4.69/5). Most agreed that the curriculum prepared them well to understand nutrition (3.96/5). Lessons Learned. The program enhanced participants’ knowledge and attitudes toward healthy habits while addressing the need for diversity in nutrition education. Medical students translated medical knowledge into age-appropriate information and learned how to be effective educators.