Cooking for Life: Youth

Cooking for Life: Youth provides youth with the nutrition and cooking skills necessary to prepare healthy, affordable meals and snacks. By providing interactive and experiential learning, and incorporating many aspects of food choice and preparation, Cooking for Life: Youth engages participants in trying new foods and in the act of improving behaviors and attaining nutritional knowledge. Since Cooking for Life: Youth began in 2001, over 2,171 at-risk youth have participated in 185 series offered throughout Vermont. Target Audience Participants are at-risk youth in grades 5-8. The program is offered with organizations that work with the target population, such as afterschool programs, teen centers, and local youth groups. To find out more about hosting a Cooking for Life: Youth series, visit: Hosting a Cooking for Life Class.

Class Topics

Cooking for Life: Youth classes meet once a week for six weeks. During each two hour session, participants work with a nutrition educator and a local chef through hands-on activities to acquire the knowledge, skills, and changes in behavior necessary to achieve adequate diets on limited budgets. The Cooking for Life: Youth curriculum was developed by dietitians at the Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger and the University of Vermont’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program and is based on the Social Cognitive Theory of Behavior Change, which states that new behaviors are learned through a combination of our environment, thoughts, and behaviors. The curriculum implements a variety of constructs from this theory such as record keeping, reinforcements, and observational learning. Topics covered in the curriculum include:

Recipes made during class correspond to the nutrition topic for that week. Click here to view a complete class outline along with a list of weekly recipes (.pdf).

“It has been great learning how to cook, I have been cooking more at home.” — Cooking for Life Participant