Alaska Native Food Guide Stresses Good Nutrition, Physical Activity for At Risk Youth

The Prevent Cancer Foundation recently awarded a $25,000 grant to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) to create traditional food guide workbooks for Alaska Native youth.

This new initiative, made possible through the Foundation’s 2011 Community Grants program, aims to promote healthy lifestyle choices and nutritional habits among children at risk for obesity, cancer and other diseases. These workbooks will emphasize traditional foods and activities, enabling youth to make more informed and responsible nutritional choices.

Christine DeCourtney, Cancer Program Manager for the ANTHC explains, “Alaska has an abundance of wild healthy foods from the sea, land and plant life. With the Prevent Cancer foundation funding, we can now develop a traditional food guide and activity work book for children to help them learn, in a fun way, about the importance of good nutrition and physical activity.”

This project follows the development and wide distribution of a popular traditional food guide for Alaska native cancer survivors, created three years ago by the ANTHC. Based in Anchorage, the ANTHC will develop and distribute approximately 800 workbooks targeting youth aged 8-10 years old, that emphasize traditional foods and physical activities involved in food gathering and preparation.

The Foundation’s Community Grants program supports local cancer awareness education and screening programs across the United States for all populations, especially underserved communities. The Foundation is proud to support the ANTHC project along with the other FY2011 grantees and their work to provide cancer prevention education and screening to communities across the country.