USDA agencies work together on nutrition education initiative

Food and Nutrition, Dec, 1992 by Wini Scheffler

"As the government leader in nutrition education, USDA has a responsibility to provide Americans with the best possible advice on improving their diets and their health," Secretary of Agriculture Edward R. Madigan said, shortly after taking office in March 1991.

To fulfill that responsibility, he made education for better nutrition one of the Department's four strategic goals. Support at the top set in motion a range of activities that will affect the nutritional and health status of Americans for years into the future. Here are some of the milestones:

USDA has...

* Established effective working groups to develop a department-wide nutrition education policy and oversee its implementation.

* Adopted a nutrition education initiative to enhance the Department's nutrition research, monitoring, and education activities. An initial budget increase of $20 million launched the initiative and brought the Department's 1993 nutrition education budget to an all-time high of $294.6 million.

* Begun active collaboration with the National Food Service Management Institute, a federally supported university-based resource center for child nutrition program operators.

* Improved the nutritional quality of school meals to enhance children's nutritional well-being and strengthen the school cafeteria's role as a learning laboratory for healthy eating habits. Specific actions have included increasing the variety of commodities supplied to schools and reducing the variety of commodities supplied to schools and reducing the amount of fat, sodium, and sugar those foods contain. The Department has also established national awards for superior school lunch programs.

* Emphasized breastfeeding as the healthiest choice for infants through the WIC program's education and training activities and administrative and regulatory practices. At the same time, the Department undertook a ground-breaking cooperative effort with public and private organizations to promote breastfeeding nationwide.

* Issued the Food Guide Pyramid in April 1992 after intensive testing of its effectiveness as a teaching tool and launched a comprehensive media campaign for the general public as well as food program participants.

* Strengthened the nutrition education partnership among USDA agencies, including funding an Extension Service initiative to expand nutrition education for the neediest WIC mothers.

* Increased technical assistance, with the goal of providing--by the end of 1994--the tools and training school food program operators need to implement the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

USDA has a wide range of resources available to plan and carry out these activities. Many USDA agencies are involved with food- and nutrition-related research and monitoring, and several provide the general public with information on nutrition and food safety.

USDA's food assistance programs, administered by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) together with state and local agencies, offer a unique opportunity to provide education along with food help:

-- Millions of American children participate in child nutrition programs operating in schools, day care centers, family day care homes, summer camps, and residential institutions.

-- In counties across the country, families and individuals turn to the Food Stamp Program to help them put food on the table during times of illness, unemployment, or other financial hardship.

-- And vulnerable groups, such as pregnant and breastfeeding women, infants, and young children, get special help through supplemental food programs.

FNS oversees 14 programs, including the Food Distribution Program, which supplies federally purchased commodities to schools and other child nutrition program sponsors, disaster relief efforts, nutrition programs for the elderly, food banks and soup kitchens, and other community-based efforts to help the needy.

An idea whose time has come

"Nutrition education is an idea whose time has come," said Betty Jo Nelsen, who served as FNS administrator until November 6 of this year. "The food assistance programs do a very good job of providing people with food. But they need to do more than that. Program participants must understand the relationship between diet and health and make healthy choices in the food they eat."

The link between diet and health has been well documented and is important for Americans at all income levels to take seriously. Former Surgeon General Koop identified dietary factors as playing a prominent role in 5 of the 10 leading causes of death for Americans--coronary heart disease, some forms of cancer, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and arteriosclerosis.

The 1988 "Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health" says these disorders account for more than two-thirds of all deaths in the United States and that diet can play an important role in reducing the risk of such conditions.

Many of today's consumers are more sophisticated and knowledgeable than ever before. And nutrition information to help them choose healthy, well-balanced diets is more plentiful than ever.