SPOTLIGHTS

RUTH BERGGREN

Future doctors, nurses to model healthy nutrition, physical activity for middle-school children

Teens from a San Antonio barrio will learn about the importance of physical activity, healthy eating and other healthy behaviors from future doctors and nurses this summer, thanks to a new class at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

The "Healthy Choices for Kids" class, developed by the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics and the School of Nursing, pairs medical and nursing students with San Antonio's Good Samaritan Center to develop a curriculum to teach and model healthy living practices to middle-school teens at a summer-long day camp.

Ashley Garcia, a second-year medical student at the Health Science Center, said the class is excited to promote good health among community children.

"Kids are very perceptive. They'll watch what we do. I'll talk about how I eat, how I fit activity into my day and how I make healthy choices daily," said Garcia, who is from Victoria, Texas. "The more they can identify with me, the more they'll take to heart what we have to say."

Drs. Ruth E. Berggren and Adelita Cantu of the Health Science Center created the class to offer medical and nursing students a hands-on learning experience that allows them to intervene in the local community on behalf of children's health.

Berggren, colleague Amanda Evrard, and Cantu, who is on the Good Samaritan Center's Board of Directors, conducted informal interviews with parents who enrolled their children for the center's camp. They found that parents wanted their children to learn about nutrition and exercise because the obesity rates and diabetes risk among residents in predominantly Latino South Texas are higher than in the rest of Texas.

The medical and nursing students attend lectures about the key health topics identified by parents and spend two months visiting the Good Samaritan Center to develop a camp curriculum.

"A pre-prepared external curriculum is going to be less effective than one developed within the community," Berggren said. "Change that is believable and sustainable comes from within the group. Otherwise, it's some kind of external gimmick."

Students hope they can make a big impact on the health of children and their families.

"I want to be able to get my [future] patients into programs that can effect real change not only in them, but also their family and friends," Garcia said.

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