From SNE

SNE: A Professional Home

I started my professional career atTeachers College studying with JoanGussow. One of my fellow graduatestudents was Ruthe Eshleman. Aftergraduation I went to Hawaii andworked with Audrey Maretzki. I re-ceived my doctorate at Penn Statewith Helen Guthrie and BarbaraShannon. These great leaders in oursociety—all former SNE Presidents—bring me to the theme for this col-umn, the theme of home.

Although I belong to many otherprofessional organizations, as I’msure many of you do, from my firstdays at Teachers College I felt SNEwas my professional home. As a rashgraduate student under the mentor-ship of the people previously men-tioned, I said to my wife, ‘‘If they canbe president why can’t I?’’ Today asPresident, I want to encourage you todream like I did. Think of SNE asyour professional home and make

your dreams a reality by getting in-volved with your divisions and affili-ates.

SNE members can help you reachyour professional objectives. Duringthe Non-Diet Curriculum for ObesityPrevention in Young Adults sessionthis July at SNE’s Annual Conferencein New Orleans, Dr. Susan Welshpresented a slide that showed howmany SNE members participating ina USDA multistate project have beenpromoted and how many students re-ceived advanced degrees working onthe project. Think of SNE as your multi-state project and see what participat-ing in divisions and on committeesor taking advantage of our mentor-ship programs can do for your career.Just look at SNEEZE, our listserv, andyou will see what resources you haveavailable right here at home.

Today we are faced with a tide ofeconomic hardships and challenges

to SNE. But we are also seeing a tideof hope that the importance of nutri-tion education is increasingly recog-nized. If you feel, as I feel, that SNEis your professional home, then helpus face the challenges of membership.Think of our message last year, ‘‘Eachone, reach one,’’ and reach out toone new member. If you attendedthe 2009 Annual Conference, thinkof the many cutting edge presenta-tions you saw and start planning fornext year in Reno. Dream, like I did,that you can make a difference andjoin the great nutrition educatorswho are part of SNE’s history andcurrent membership. Our organiza-tion is characterized by inclusiveness,a shared vision of nutrition education,and core values that I am committedto maintain over the next year.

Geoffrey Greene, PhD, RD, LDNSNE President, 2009-2010

From JNEB

What’s Your Key Mediating Variable for Having Lunch atHome?

Maybe your spouse and kids arehome. Or you have leftovers and it’scheaper. You might need a breakfrom everyone at your office. Whatam I getting at? How about subjectivenorms, perceived benefits, and out-come expectancies? For me, all 3 ofthese could be key mediating variablesfor eating lunch at home, and I don’thave to think too hard to list them.

How are we doing with using me-diating variables in our work? Ourlead paper discusses how to interpretmediating variable issues and analy-sis. It’s an article I know I’ll read againand again and will send along to mystudents.1 By thinking beyond behav-ioral theory we can perhaps becomemore focused on the variables that

have the most effect on our outcomebehaviors. It’s not easy. It requiresmore thought and pilot-testing. Butfor us to move forward and demon-strate strong, positive outcomes fromour educational interventions, I thinkwe need to step back and contemplatethe literature, as well as the compo-nents of the interventions that seemmost effective as we design newinitiatives.

As we see in the article by Diazet al2, both gender and acculturationmay have an impact on mediatingvariables for Latino adolescents.Friends may be a benefit and familya barrier for African American womentrying to consume low fat foods.3 Ofcourse we can look at many articles

individually, but I think to be effectivefor our target populations we need tobe thorough, focused, and flexible aswe identify our key mediating vari-ables, construct appropriate interven-tions, and analyze the results asdiscussed by Cerin et al.1

Having embraced behavioral theo-ries, it may seem unwise to identifyonly key components of those theo-ries upon which to focus our interven-tions and analyses. On the otherhand, this approach makes quitea bit of sense. As the authors explain,learning how to change the mediatingvariables is an important step forwardto changing the outcome variableitself. So for me to stay at the officeduring lunchtime would require an