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The goal of EPIC Kids is to promote adoption of behaviors associated with a healthy weight trajectory and prevent excess weight gain while supporting growth and development in children at risk for type 2 diabetes. Objectives include making physical activity integral to life, healthy eating, and creating home environments to ensure healthy behaviors are the easy choice. Target Audience: Children -9-12-years-old -who have $1 type 2 diabetes risk factors and their caregivers. Theory, Prior Research, Rationale: Evidence-based, efficacious community interventions for diabetes prevention in youth remain a critical need. We adapted the successful adult-focused YMCA Diabetes Prevention Program (YDPP) to serve children and families at risk. Prior studies suggest effective interventions are family-centered, target diet and physical activity, and include parents. Description: EPIC Kids is a 12-week program led by YMCA lifestyle coaches consisting of weekly interactive sessions designed to engage families in healthy eating and physical activity, help them set goals around energy balance, and teach them to structure the home environment to support healthy lifestyle behaviors. Evaluation: Potential public health impact was evaluated using program reach, efficacy, adoption, implementation, and maintenance data collected from YMCA administrators (n¼4), lifestyle coaches (n¼12) and families (n¼47) using qualitative and quantitative methods. Thirty six percent of screened families were eligible to participate; participants expressed high program satisfaction (>87% enjoyed weekly activities) and 75% reported high likelihood of adopting recommended changes. Weekly attendance was 65%; program sessions were implemented as planned.Conclusions and Implications: EPIC Kids offers a community-based youth diabetes prevention program delivered by an organization located in over 10,000 U.S. communities.

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Background: The functions, food sources, deficiency symptoms, and toxicity symptoms are important for dietetic professionals to know and apply to community, food service, and clinical settings.Purpose: To assess nutrition and dietetic students’ knowledge of vitamins and minerals and identify students’ strategies for learning and retaining vitamin and mineral information.Methodology: Students from three universities in the western United States were invited to participate in cross-sectional study. Participants completed a brief questionnaire that included multiple choice and short answer questions to assess their knowledge of a representative list of 8 vitamins and minerals. The questionnaire also included free-response questions about strategies for retention of vitamin/mineral information. Two researchers independently reviewed responses and identified themes.Results: Students’ scores on multiple-choice vitamin/mineral questions suggested that they had difficulty remembering details regarding vitamins and minerals. Three themes were identified as common study strategies for learning vitamin and mineral content: repetition, mnemonic devices, and personal application.Conclusions: These findings suggest that further research assessing the increased use of repetition, mnemonic devices, and especially personal application in dietetics education curriculum are warranted.