Development and Evaluation of a Family-Based Cooking and Nutrition Education Program

Abstract

Low-income families experience many barriers to purchasing and preparing healthful foods. To help address some of these barriers, a team created a family-based cooking class, Healthy All Together, in which participants learn strategies for how to stretch their food dollars and feed their families healthful meals. In this article, we describe the development of Healthy All Together, report program impacts, and summarize program feedback from participants and instructors. Of particular importance is the idea that engaging children in cooking through a family-based class has the potential to help families consider how to use strategies to mitigate barriers to healthful cooking.