An Evaluation of an Expanded Nutrition and Culinary Education After-School Program for 4th and 5th Graders in Five Diverse Urban Neighborhoods

ABSTRACT The present study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of program expansion of an afterschool Nutrition and Culinary Education Program with a 79% participation rate. A retrospective matched-pairs analysis was conducted on pre- and post-survey data of all five sites of 284 young participants (and their parents) who took part in a 10-week, 2-hour cooking and educational workshop. The results demonstrate that NCEP’s are effective, producing significant positive change in diverse neighborhoods in areas of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors around food. However, results varied among individual sites. Further study is needed to understand factors, which may influence outcomes between individual sites.