Nutrition Education and Resiliency among Rural Adolescents: A Pilot Project from Texas

Overview: This research explores the implementation of a nutrition education and literacy program for rural adolescents. Resiliency, as measured by the DERS-18 (Difficulties in Emotion Regulation-18), and food security, through a specifically developed scale, provide promising for further development and implementation.Proposal text: Food insecurity is a global phenomenon that impacted 42 million people in the United States in 2015 and affected nearly 12% of all households nationwide in the year of 2016 (Mott, Keller, Britt-Rankin, & Ball, 2018; Shanafelt, Hearst, Wang, & Nanney, 2016). Food insecurity disproportionately affects individuals who belong to marginalized populations, single parent headed households, as well as children and adolescents (Buck- McFadyen, 2015; Dean & Sharkey, 2011; Jackson et al., 2017; Shanafelt et al., 2016). Research to address this social problem has demonstrated that food education and food literacy may be an integral part of ameliorating some of the detrimental effects of food insecurity by boosting individual’s confidence levels when shopping for and growing one’s own nutritious foods and improving self- efficacy (Begley et al., 2019; Diehl, 2014; Dollahite et al., 2003; Scholes et al., 2016; Tumwebaze, 2018).
Approximately 20% of children in Texas experience hunger (Feeding America, 2022). Additionally, rural families face increased rates of hunger due to the challenges of remote living including but not limited to: access to health foods, restricted job opportunities and rates of un- and under-employment (Feeding Texas, 2022. One hundred ninety-one of Texas’ 254 counties (or 75%) are considered rural, making this a significant issue for the state (Texas Commission on the Arts, 2022).
This research highlights the findings of a pilot study to address assess the impact of nutrition education and literacy on resiliency and food security in adolescents residing in a rural Texas community. Through a University-Community partnership with a local rural school district’s high school agricultural program, adolescent study participants were provided experiential nutrition education and gardening education with a long-term goal of a community-based produce market for low-income families. In addition to traditional gardening, students were exposed to a variety of growing techniques, including in soil, hydroponic, and aeroponic growing. This provided students with the opportunity to explore cost saving, space limited, growing resources, that are accessible in rural areas and to income-limited families. Results within a COVID-changed research landscape, identify improved resiliency as measured by the DERS-18 (Difficulties in Emotion Regulation-18) pre-and post-test scores (Gratz & Roemer, 2004; Victor, & Klonsky, 2016) and nutrition education scale. Findings from this study may support social work educators in preparing emerging social workers to work in rural communities, specifically to help address adolescent food insecurities through partnerships with local school districts establishing nutrition programs using tower gardens. These findings along with recommendations for furthering this research, and unique challenges to consider for expanded implementation, will be presented.