Press Release

July 11, 2006
Contact: Kaylyn Dines
Phone: (973) 972-3000
dineskd@umdnj.edu

Nutrition Expert at UMDNJ Offers Youth Tips To Help Prevent Obesity
Academic Summer Program Offers Nutrition Class for Teenagers

NEWARK - A nutritionist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey will conduct a series of interactive-culinary classes for ninth-grade students on Wednesdays between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., at the UMDNJ-School of Health Related Professions, 65 Bergen St., and Room 918, in Newark.

Every Wednesday, 45 teenagers in the Pre-College Program at the UMDNJ-School of Health Related Professions, will visit a Food Demonstration Kitchen to participate in the Nutrition Education Program that highlights topics such as: understanding of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food guide pyramid, reading nutrition labels, making smoothies, maintaining body weight, recognizing and avoiding foods that are high in sugar, and preparing vegetables.

“This Nutrition Education Program is intended to emphasize the importance of making informed food choices and developing consistent physical activity habits, ” said Colleen Johnson, a nutritionist at the UMDNJ-School of Health Related Professions, who has arranged for nutrition educators to facilitate four, one-hour sessions with 15 students per group.

“Since obesity rates for youth continue to increase, our students will receive easy recipes and suggestions they can follow to achieve optimal health and wellness,” said Clinton Dozier, director of the Pre-College Program at the UMDNJ-School of Health Related Professions. “The lessons they learn in class can be applied to the balanced meal they receive Monday through Friday as part of a free a federally funded 2006 Summer Food Service Program.”

The Summer Food Service Program is a federal program of the Food and Nutrition Services at the U.S. Department Agriculture in Washington, D.C. The program provides all children 18 years of age and under with the same free menu in accordance with a meal approved. Pre-College students will participate in this program until August 3.

The purpose of the Pre-College program is to help students from seventh through twelfth grade form solid academic foundations that will prepare them to become self-sufficient professionals. The Pre-College Program at the UMDNJ-School of Health Related Professions is part of the Consortium for Pre-College Education in Greater Newark. The Consortium for Pre-College Education in Greater Newark is an agreement between the universities in Newark and the Public Schools in Newark, Irvington, and East Orange.

UMDNJ is the nation’s largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and a school of public health on five campuses. More than two million patients visited UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.