Who We Are

Nutrition for a Changing World (NCW) is a program focusing on developing curriculum and training diverse undergraduate students at CSUF to understand the biological, psychosocial and social contextual issues related to childhood obesity and nutrition in our changing and diverse populations.  California has the largest and one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations of Southeast Asians, Hispanics, and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders within the United States. There is a disproportionately high prevalence of childhood obesity in especially the later two groups; therefore training a diverse workforce who can understand obesity prevention and how to improve nutritional status within these populations is critical to the state’s and nation’s health.  A conceptual framework for curriculum development that includes didactic, pedagogical obesity prevention and nutrition concepts, a comprehensive social contextual theory approach and applied learning, intertwined with the nine steps of Transforming Agricultural Education has been utilized to develop the NCW program. 

Mission

NCW aims to enhance knowledge and skills for diverse, underserved students to more effectively address nutrition and childhood obesity in immigrant populations.

Goals

• Educate diverse students on nutrition and the growing need for childhood obesity prevention both at the pedagogical and experiential learning level.
• To train diverse college students in childhood obesity prevention/control and increase knowledge related to career and graduate opportunities in the food and agricultural sciences.
• Serve as an educational resource for academic and community-based organizations addressing  childhood obesity and nutrition in diverse, immigrant populations.
• Through technological advances develop linkages between UC and CSU systems, and to explore partnerships in research, education and community engagement.

Supported in part by a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Higher Education Challenge grant, # 2011-38411-30536

CSUF undergraduate students enrolled in NCW

Lyanna Pillazar, CSUF graduate student and NCW study coordinator