A prescription for better health
Registered dietitian Julie Knight helps Extension’s Stephen Dishinger demonstrate healthy cooking at NexusPark.
Vivian Delatorre is part of the first cohort in Purdue Extension’s Food as Medicine program held in the new Healthy Communities Teaching Kitchen at NexusPark in Columbus, Indiana. Delatorre is not only learning healthier food preparation for herself and her husband; as an employee at the VIMCare Clinic in NexusPark, she also is excited to recommend the program to patients, many of whom are underinsured and from low-income households.
“My job at the front desk is my first job in a medical setting, so the information from the classes will help me there,” she says. “It is a great learning experience about food and health.”
Food as Medicine helps Indiana residents make potentially lifesaving dietary changes. Programs are tailored to community needs but often involve nutrition education, meal kits and innovative partnerships.
In Columbus, data from a health needs survey conducted by Columbus Regional Hospital is the basis for Food as Medicine programs. “Nutrition, obesity and diabetes are always high on our health needs,” says Julie Knight, a registered dietitian with Healthy Communities, the hospital’s public health arm.
Knight, who leads the steering team for the teaching kitchen, invited Stephen Dishinger, Bartholomew County Extension educator, and Katelyn Kutemeier, Purdue Extension Nutrition Education Program community wellness coordinator, to develop and present the Food as Medicine program at the new facility.
During the program, Dishinger provides participants with practical tips on food selection and preparation as part of meal demonstrations. Kutemeier works with local food producers to fill bags with all the ingredients that participants need to recreate the meals at home.
Knight and her Extension partners are already applying lessons learned from working with the first cohort to a second Food as Medicine program adapted for VIMCare Clinic patients with high blood pressure. “We are looking to make a change in that biomarker,” she says.
Program Impact
- Extension provided 224 LEARNING SESSIONS related to Food as Medicine involving 53 YOUTH AND 2,208 ADULTS (2023-2024).
- Extension professionals TAILORED PROGRAMS TO THEIR AUDIENCES and with such topics as heart health, food insecurity, budgeting and meal planning, reading food labels, accessing local foods and physical activity across the lifespan.
- Participants self-reported LEARNING SOMETHING NEW; INCREASED AWARENESS OF OR CONFIDENCE “try, adopt, change, apply” what they learned.