Natasha Paz, Megan Belzer, Alex Shew

MEAL PLAN AND PREP Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqEc87Z2CMc

Introduction Freshman college students face a number of different barriers to access healthy foods. It is critical that they eat a nutritious diet and stay healthy because a balanced diet will increases their ability to handle the stresses of college life, help them sleep better, give them more strength to study, and increase cognitive function. Eating nutritious meals at home will also help them resist fast foods, sugar filled foods, and other foods that are loaded with empty calories that will have negative effects on their health, mood and thought process. We want to inform them of the benefits and barriers to cooking and preparing meals at home and provide them with skills necessary to do so. A study conducted by The College Journal in 2006, states that two dominant reasons for being unable to prepare basic foods were they had never been taught (knowledge barrier) and they had no interest in learning (attitude barrier). Young adults should be educated on the health, financial and time saving benefits to stimulate an interest in preparing their own meals, and then given some educational material to inform them on the basics of how to make these meals at home. Some benefits from the literature include cost savings, time savings, and increase in healthier food choices. Cooking is cheaper than eating out. Studies indicate that food is the second biggest expense for college students. The majority of students can expect to spend at least $2,000 annually on food and are dependent on restaurants, fast-food kiosks, or the college dining hall; and every meal will push that amount even higher (Hertzler, 2002). Cooking and preparing meals saves time and money. In the time it takes to walk to a fast-food restaurant or make your way through the buffet line at the college dining hall, you could have prepared a simple dinner of stir-fried chicken with steamed vegetables and rice. Franciscy, McArthur, and Holbert (2004) surveyed college men to assess the average length of time required to prepare meals. They found breakfast was seven minutes, lunch required 11 minutes, and dinner was prepared in 26 minutes. Preparing meals at home can also help increase study time because they can prepare a meal and then continue to study in the comfort of their dorm or apartment while eating. Cooking your own food is healthier. The College Student Journal (2006) claims that When eating outside the home, both food choices and nutrition quality are affected. The selections are generally higher in fat, sodium, and cholesterol, whereas eating meals at

home is includes more fruit and vegetable intake and less fried food and soda consumption. Eating at home also creates a healthier eating pattern that will help keep student stay strong and healthy while under stress and in school.

Analyze needs and behaviors & Identify relevant Mediators

In order to create a successful Nutrition Intervention, we had to assess the needs and interests of our subjects in order to more accurately target our audience. We conducted a needs analysis survey to inquire about barriers, limitations, interests, and knowledge of college freshmen and what aspects motivate or interest them. We created a 12 question survey about meal preparation and cooking at home. The survey was uploaded online and sent to 16 freshmen to complete. This surveyed how often they cook, prepare meals, or shop, how often they eat out, how knowledgeable they were about cooking and shopping, what meal planning skills they already have, what barriers they have with preparing meals, and what benefits or motivators they would get with cooking at home. The results were interesting and helped us to shape our objectives and goals. We found that over 50% of students eat out twice or more a day and only go grocery shopping once a month or less. Of these students the majority of them are not very confident or not confident at all with cooking, which means that the lack the skills to prepare meals and cook at home. We asked about what barriers they have in preparing their own meals and the most selected was cost (85.71%), time to prepare and shop (71.43%), and lack of skills and techniques (28.57%). The barriers allowed us to outline our goals and objectives, and decide what the program was going to cover and include in our intervention. We then asked about what would motivate them to plan and prepare more of their own meals at home and they majority percentage said simple and easy recipes, meal planning strategies such as shopping lists and tips, and a cost/time savings of making more meals at home; this helped guide our nutrition education material. Some limitations that we found were that our sample size was relatively small and might not be a good representative sample for all college freshmen, so this needed to be taken into consideration when analyzing the results and projecting the statistics to all freshmen age students. Another barrier was some of the questions may have been misinterpreted or confusing so some of the responses were contradicting. For example the majority of the students claimed that they are not confident with cooking or lack the skills to cook, however they claim they are confident that they can plan and prepare 3 meals a week. This could be due to the fact that we didnt specify what type of meals are prepared at home so they could have interpreted this term as frozen meals, or ready to eat foods. Another

limitation is that the majority of the freshmen do not live off campus, so they might not be familiar with cooking or preparing meals in a kitchen. These limitations will be taken into consideration and not overseen when planning the intervention. Theory, Philosophy, and Components After assessing the needs of our target audience we selected a theory based model to help shape our intervention and ensure success in our program. We chose Albert Banduras Social Cognitive Model as the theory we would base our intervention on. This theory is based on the idea that our behaviors are affected by our environment and personal factors. We feel that this theory is applicable to college freshmen because they are trapped in an environment where fast food is at their fingertips, their lives are fast paced and chaotic, and they lack access and skills to prepare food. It is a good match and should be a strong foundation for an effective intervention. The social cognitive model uses seven different constructs as the basis of the theory and helped us outline our specific and general objectives. The first construct is self-efficacy which is a persons confidence in performing a particular behavior. The second is behavioral capability or the knowledge and skills they have to perform a given behavior and promotes higher learning through training. The next construct is Modeling and observational learning where students can acquire new behaviors by watching the actions and outcomes of others behavior. Reinforcement is the fourth construct and helps to increase or decrease the likelihood of the behavior becoming permanent. Reciprocal determinism is the dynamic interaction of the person, the behavior and the environment. An important construct is expectations and barriers which describe limitations and perceived benefits. The last construct is outcome expectancies which depicts how important the behavior is to them. Educational Objectives Goal: The goal of our intervention is to provide college freshmen with the knowledge and skills to prepare more meals at home. General Objectives: 1. Demonstrate self-efficacy in the ability to shop, prepare, and cook meals at home. (Selfefficacy)

2. Demonstrate knowledge of the multiple benefits to eating and preparing meals at home. (Expectations) 3. Demonstrate the skills necessary to cook and prepare meals at home. (Behavioral Capability) Specific Objectives: At the end of our intervention: 1. Participants will have the ability to shop at the grocery store effectively twice a month, and prepare three home-cooked meals a week. 2. Participants will be able to identify 3 benefits to cooking meals at home. 3. Participants will have the skills to execute 3 simple recipes and create a practical shopping list.

Resources: Hertzler, A. A., & Bruce, F. A. (2002). Cooking, recipe use and food habits of college students and nutrition educators. International Journal Of Consumer Studies, 26(4), 340-345. doi:10.1046/j.14706431.2002.00248. Marquis, M. (2005). Exploring convenience orientation as a food motivation for college students living in residence halls. International Journal Of Consumer Studies, 29(1), 55-63. doi:10.1111/j.14706431.2005.00375.x Soliah, L., Walter, J., & Antosh, D. (2006). QUANTIFYING THE IMPACT OF FOOD PREPARATION SKILLS AMONG COLLEGE WOMEN. College Student Journal, 40(4), 729-739.