Nutrition education improves academic performance
What Has ANR Done?UC specialists, a UC Cooperative Extension advisor and staff collaborated with a school district in Tulare County serving low-income students to see whether implementing the EatFit curriculum improved the students’ standardized test scores. Knowledge of specific math and language arts topics of students in three 6th-grade classrooms was tested five weeks prior to the education intervention, immediately before the EatFit intervention and after the EatFit intervention.
EatFit improves math and language arts test scoresThe EatFit intervention was shown to have a positive impact on student achievement of selected 6th-grade content standards for mathematics and language arts: 70 percent of the students improved their algebra and function skills, 38 percent improved their statistics skills, 39 percent improved in mathematical reasoning, and 70 percent improved their listening and speaking skills. Ninety-nine percent of students made an improvement in at least one of the content standards. No improvement in test scores was seen prior to the EatFit intervention.
Clientele Testimonial“The students enjoy the hands-on activities. They don’t realize they’re learning math and language arts — they’re having fun while adopting good eating and physical activity habits.” - 6th grade teacher, Tulare County, Calif.
Supporting Unit:Tulare County
Cathi Lamp, (559) 685-3309 Ext. 218, firstname.lastname@example.org