February, 2012
Contact: STRIDE Director/Professor Ann McDermott
805-756-6447; amcdermo@calpoly.edu
STRIDE Students Bringing Nutrition to Middle-Schoolers
Across the County — and Now the Nation
SAN LUIS OBISPO -- A program designed to bring nutrition knowledge to middle school students and their families through after-school cooking classes will be used as a model across the country in 2012.
Cal Poly student Health Ambassadors lead the Pink and Dude Chefs program, teaching middle school chefs-in-training how to use fresh ingredients to prepare healthy meals and snacks for their families, and serve as positive role models. By introducing fresh fruits and vegetables, the program also teaches middle school students nutrition fundamentals and kitchen skills.
It's just one of the programs of the STRIDE (Science through Translational Research in Diet and Exercise) center, headed by Kinesiology Professor Ann McDermott.
Thanks to grants and private funding from people like Cal Poly parent Jennifer Maxwell and the members of the Webster Family Foundation, Professor McDermott and STRIDE students created a series of online training videos about the Pink and Dude Chefs after-school program. The STRIDE-made videos are broken up into lessons to teach volunteers at other agencies to recreate the Pink and Dude Chefs program in their schools.
A middle school in Carpinteria, Calif., and Indian Reservations in North Dakota and Santa Ynez, Calif. are using the instructional training videos this spring and summer. They hope to launch their own branch of Pink and Dude after-school programs later this year.
If the launch and training is successful, STRIDE plans to make the Pink and Dude Chef’s program training video series available to any agency that wants to launch the program.
Visit the STRIDE Website to find out more about its programs.