Nutrition & Health Education
Throughout the five boroughs, low-income neighborhoods are characterized by a lack of affordable, nutritious grocery stores, chronically stretched budgets and the prevalence of low-cost junk food. Among other problems, these circumstances contribute to high concentrations of diet-related conditions such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension. The Food Bank's CookShop Program — the centerpiece of our nutrition and health education efforts — Open Market BackPack Program and Network Services combat food poverty by helping New Yorkers in need move toward healthy lifestyles and supporting our network of food assistance programs to build capacity and improve existing services.
Using hands-on exploration and cooking activities to foster children’s enjoyment and consumption of healthy foods, as well as their appreciation for good nutrition, CookShop Classroom is used in approximately 700 public elementary and after-school classes.
EATWISE, our Cookshop program for teens, is a peer nutrition-education program that puts students in charge of chapters in their public schools and youth organizations. Participants receive training and facilitate workshops on nutrition and healthy eating.
CookShop for Adults offers workshops for parents and guardians of students in schools participating in CookShop Classroom. Through simple, healthy recipes using fresh, affordable ingredients, the workshops offer the skills and knowledge needed to make CookShop part of their families’ daily lives.
Through the Change One Thing campaign, CookShop Social Marketing encourages food-stamp eligible New York teens to make one healthy choice per day to move toward a healthy lifestyle.
Our Open Market BackPack Program provides nutrition-education for children while letting them choose food for themselves and their families in a marketplace setting.
The Food Bank provides our citywide network of more than 1,000 food assistance programs with education and nutrition services in order to strengthen the New York City hunger-relief community's ability to combat food poverty.
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