The project focuses on creating an outreach event/day to a local middle school to help teach children more about nutrition, healthy eating habits, and to teach them about the medical field/pediatric GI. The goal is not only teach them about nutrition but also to hopefully spark interest in the medical field and also have kids see multiple diverse members/doctors who are part of this field who they may identify with.
The DEI committee of NASPGHAN helped to make this event possible. The outreach day took place during the week of the NASPGHAN annual conference in Hollywood Florida. They plan to continue having this outreach event/day during future annual NASPGHAN conferences. This provides the ability to have multiple different volunteers/doctors/trainees/RD's and medical reps from different institutions/locations come together and participate in this event.
This year they had multiple stations where the kids could rotate through and learn about high fiber foods, healthy food options, a smoothie making station, a station where they learned about constipation and how nutrition can be a way to treat this. They also had a station where we had members from EvoEndo come and teach children about a new scoping device/procedure (transnasal endoscopy) and where the kids had the opportunity to be hands on and use the transnasal endoscopy simulator.
The committee gave children a pre-event quiz and post-event quiz where we asked them a few questions about nutrition and their interest in the medical field. They plan to repeat this quiz 3 months after the event to see if the event had any immediate and sustained impact.
They hope to continue this outreach day at future NASPGHAN conferences which takes place in a new location each year and that way they can target different communities and partner with local middle schools there.