Professors Present ‘Art and Design for Nutrition Outreach’ Seminar to STRIDE Team Members

may 3, 2014

Art and Design Professor Charmaine Martinez and food science and nutrition faculty member Susan Swadener recently presented a two-part seminar called "Art and Design for Nutrition Outreach" to STRIDE’s Health Ambassadors and SNAP-Ed team members. The seminar taught STRIDE team members how to maximize the impact of their outreach work by making information engaging and memorable.

“Our goal is to teach members of the STRIDE team how to give effective nutrition messages,” Swadener explained.

The seminar mixed information on nutrition with art and design instruction, an blend for the work done by STRIDE’s teams. “Improving the designs used by STRIDE’s teams can make their work more effective, which, in turn, can help with grant renewals,” Martinez explained.

Martinez taught team members how to approach problems the way designers do while Swadener explained how to use a comprehensive approach to address challenges in health promotion. STRIDE’s team members were given the opportunity to apply Martinez's intentional, structured problem-solving method to real-world problems.

“Effective nutrition education requires a combination of educational strategies at the individual, institutional, community and policy levels,” Swadener said. She gave STRIDE team members tips on how to “sell healthy food like advertisers sell other foods.” Since both Health Ambassadors and SNAP-Ed work primarily with children, Swadener offered insight into ways to help children be more open-minded toward healthy foods.

This seminar not only benefitted STRIDE’s team members and the people impacted by their work but also increased interdisciplinary collaboration between Cal Poly faculty. “Opportunities like this for cross-collaboration between departments and colleges are really enriching for faculty,” Swadener said. “I hadn’t even met Charmaine until a few weeks ago, but now we have gotten to work together on this presentation.”