MSU Extension Nutrition

The Big Picture

• 36,801 Total PSE reached
• 185 Total sites
• 367 Changes adopted
  • 49 Policies
  • 148 System
  • 170 Environmental
• Types of changes adopted:
  • 268 Nutrition
  • 95 Physical activity
  • 4 Both nutrition and physical activity

MSU Extension Action

MSU Extension partners with Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) to provide Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed), a nutrition education program to reduce hunger and food insecurity and promote healthy eating habits.

The Impact

Community champions

• A total of 888 YOUTH and 185 ADULTS served as champions to make changes at their respective sites.

Readiness to implement change

• Over 125 SITES demonstrated their need and readiness with a validated pre-assessment tool.

Top nutrition changes

• Use of the garden for nutrition education
• Opportunities for parents/students/community to access fruits and vegetables from the garden
• Clients have the opportunity to choose at least some foods they would like to take from food pantries, food banks, or soup kitchens (e.g., a client-choice model)
• Ongoing, point-of-decision prompts to make a healthy eating behavior choice (could include signage, taste tests, and other interactive displays)
• Initiation, improvement, expansion, reinvigoration or maintenance of edible gardens

Top physical activity changes

• Physical activity facilities, equipment, structures, or outdoor space
• Incorporation of physical activity into the school day or during classroom-based instruction (not recess/free play or PE)
• Used interactive educational display (that will stay at the site), other visual displays, posters, live demonstrations, audiovisuals, celebrities, etc., to prompt physical activity choices close to the point of decision
• Quality of structured physical activity (non-PE) (e.g., activities that increase time moving, evidence-based interventions, etc.)
• Opportunities for structured physical activity

PSE Success Story

The Pantry2Preschool (P2P) project provided food boxes for families at the preschool sites their children attended. MSU Extension provided guidance for the food items purchased and provided in the food boxes; along with corresponding healthy recipes for the families to use at home. The community champion and volunteers at the food pantry are supporters of making healthy food choices and being physically active. They reported choosing more fruit and vegetables and encouraging pantry participants to do the same. The layout of the pantry was also adjusted to support more efficient shopping and packing of the P2P food boxes.

Multi-level Success Stories

The U Dig It Community Garden has a 59-bed garden that provides opportunities for youth and adult to learn about gardening, nutrition education, food preservation, and giving back through produce donations to the Lakeshore Food Club. In FY2022, 4,202 adults and youth were impacted by the produce donation program.

In FY22, the Tuscola Food Access Collaborative worked with the public transportation authority and a local farmers market to find a solution for transportation barriers that limited access to healthy food options. The group’s work resulted in mini mobile pantries (Thumb Blessing Boxes) filled with food items, personal hygiene products, paper products, and cleaning supplies being placed on public transportation and stocked from local farmers market support.