Middle-school students Ruth Silva, Brooke Torres and Fatima Turrubiates show off their watermelon at the farmers market, while behind them UT Health Science Center San Antonio nursing student Emiko Dudley and Good Samaritan Day Camp counselor Alexis Perez look on.
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About 20 middle-school students from the Good Samaritan Community Center Summer Day Camp went to a farmers market on San Antonio’s West Side recently to learn about healthy food choices. The students are participating in the Healthy Choices for Kids program, a summer program for Hispanic children from low-income families.

The program also doubles as an interprofessional elective course for UT Health Science Center San Antonio nursing and medical students. The medical and nursing students designed the curriculum and are teaching it at Good Samaritan Community Center and Krueger Middle School.

Curriculum emphasizes healthy choices in all areas of life
The Health Science Center students designed the curriculum to teach the 10- to 14-year-olds how to make healthy decisions regarding fitness, nutrition and healthy relationships, with the goal of reducing obesity, diabetes, violence and teen pregnancy. The camp includes positive youth development, exercise, healthy lifestyle choices, goal setting, bullying/anger management and sexual abstinence.

At the farmers market, the children learned that eating more fresh fruits and vegetables can combat childhood obesity, and that fresh produce is available for a reasonable price in their area of town. The children were each given $2 to buy fruit.

Nikolas Hernandez, Brandon Cantu and Jonah Rodriguez made a fruit smoothie with the produce they bought during the farmers market field trip, part of the Healthy Choices for Kids summer program UT Health Science Center students design and teach.

Delicious results
“They purchased some fruit and then went back to the center and made healthy smoothies to demonstrate different ways fruits can be used in the diet,” said Adelita G. Cantu, Ph.D. RN, assistant professor of chronic nursing care, who teaches the elective course with Ruth Berggren, M.D., director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics.

“It is a great feeling to see something we planned in our curriculum go over so well with the kids. Their happiness and excitement to see us is wonderful,” said second-year nursing student Emiko Dudley, one of four Health Science Center students who accompanied the children to the farmers market held on Wednesdays at St. Jude Catholic Church. The other Health Science Center students were nursing students Lucinda Diaz and Roslinda Barrientos, and Aidee Garza, from the University of Texas School of Public Health.