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Fallbrook fifth grade student health report card

On Friday, November 30, at the Choate Early Childhood Center a group of nurses from UCSD gave a report on the health situation of fifth-graders in the Live Oak and La Paloma schools of the Fallbrook Union Elementary School District.

Also on hand were representatives of the Fallbrook Smiles Project (FSP) (begun by Don Mykkanen and dentists Dr. Randy Carlson and Dr. Katie Stewart), which recently merged with the Fallbrook CATCH (Community Access to Child Health). The Fallbrook Village Rotary Foundation also plays a significant role in the work.

Their mission is to improve access to oral and medical healthcare and work mainly with children. The CATCH program was begun By Dr. William Moody, who is now living in China and performing gratis surgeries on orphans as well as tending to other humanitarian duties.

The Fallbrook Childhood Diabetes Prevention Project (FCDPP), one of the programs discussed on Friday, is a project of CATCH. Because they are concerned about childhood obesity and diabetes prevention the task force conducts BMI and blood glucose screenings and conducts healthy lifestyle education with the help of the UCSD nursing students.

The nursing students have been participating in the program for five years. The report given concerned 500 fifth-graders aged ten and eleven.

The nurses visit the homes of the students and also give counseling to the parents, although there is a language barrier due to the fact that many of the parents speak only Spanish.

“Some of the parents only have a third to sixth grade education and some are illiterate,” said one nursing student.

Of the two schools reported on, 61 percent of the students are Latino.

One concern the nursing students voiced was the fact that many of the families are low-income and thus will consume the less expensive foods, which are low in nutritional value.

“Skipped meals are a problem,” one nurse said.

They commented that people who eat breakfast are healthier and maintain a better body weight than those who do not make breakfast a daily routine.

“Many of the children are not eating breakfast,” one nurse commented.

The nurses expressed some concerns regarding the fact that many of the families practice home remedies, which sometimes do not work.

Healthcare is available to these families; however, due to barriers such as transportation, language and the fact that some are undocumented immigrants, many are not getting the healthcare they need.

Another concern expressed was the fact that there are only three part-time nurses (the equivalent of one full-time nurse) for 7,000 Fallbrook elementary school students.

The nurses expressed concern over the quality of food served in the elementary school cafeterias, including pizza, fried chicken and hamburgers.

A survey was done on the two elementary schools, which showed that 29 percent of the students have used alcohol.

On the positive side, when the nurses recently visited the homes of the students they found many of them were not at home but involved in after-school programs. Churches in the Fallbrook area, such as St. John’s and Fallbrook Four Square, have after-school programs for the youth.

“It is a community effort, but CATCH helps them get started,” said one nurse.

The nurses felt that their intervention has been effective in producing a greater sense of wellbeing among the students.

“Their mental health and physical activity has a correlation,” one student mentioned.

They feel that progress has been made in teaching the students and parents to eat a more healthful diet and pursue a more active lifestyle.

 

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