Factors that Contribute to Effective Nutrition Education Interventions in Children
Dr. Mary Murimi, Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Texas Tech University, will talk about factors that contribute to effective nutrition education interventions with children. She will argue that dietary practices learned during childhood may track to adulthood with the potential to influence health status for decades. For this reason, she feels strongly that it is imperative to establish healthy dietary practices at an early age through effective nutrition education interventions. However, childhood covers a wide range of ages and related cognitive and physical development complicating the design and delivery of nutrition educational interventions. Based on a systematic review of the literature published between 2009 and 2016, she identified seven overarching factors for successful nutrition education interventions among children, which she will present in her talk.
Dr. Murimi is a Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Texas Tech University. She received her Ph.D. in Human Nutrition from Iowa State University and has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus by her alma mater. She is also the recipient of the Society of Nutrition Education and Behavior’s Mid-Career Achievement Award. Dr. Murimi has served her profession as the president of the Society of Nutrition Education and Behavior, and as associate editor for the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. She is currently the Chancellor for Daystar University in Kenya, Africa. Dr. Murimi’s research interests include understanding effective nutrition education interventions in diverse populations, examining the effects of the community environment on the nutrition status of the residents, and identifying coping strategies for food insecurity and factors that influence dietary behavior, especially among low-income populations. She applies an ecological approach and the Train the Trainer Model in her community based participatory research. More recently, Dr. Murimi has begun to study the usage of native vegetables to combat food insecurity. She has collaborative relationships with institutions in both Ethiopia and Kenya. In Ethiopia, Dr. Murimi has a USAID funded project linking livestock to human nutrition.
