Any parent knows that getting a child to eat their fruits and vegetables can seem like a losing battle, but for participants in the Walker County Head Start Program, that struggle may soon be a thing of the past. Sam Houston State University’s Tabbetha Lopez and Linda Fergus are engaging in a unique partnership through two Academic Community Engagement courses to provide meal kits, expose children to various vegetables and conduct wellness checks for the program’s parents and students.
Lopez serves as the director of the Graduate Program in Dietetics, including the dietetic internship program and an assistant professor within the Department of Human Sciences, while Fergus directs the department’s didactic program in food science and nutrition and leads courses of her own as an assistant professor. The two have worked closely in the past, often collaborating on projects where the dietetic interns provide nutritional direction to community members while the students conduct wellness exams.
Fergus said, “This year, we’re going to be helping out with the Head Start project, where we’ll be trying to get the children to eat more fruits and vegetables.” She said, “We’ll have a few opportunities where they’re not just encountering the food on their plate, but being exposed to it, touching it, smelling it, doing activities with it, all to try and get them more familiar with it.”
