PurposeThe purpose of this research is to increase consumers' use of food thermometers to test the endpoint temperature of small cuts of meats.Design/methodology/approachThe project integrates research, classroom and non‐formal education.FindingsInstant‐read food thermometers were available in >73 percent of USA supermarkets and most were accurate within 1.1°C. Lethality findings include that ground beef patties should either be cooked in a two‐sided grill or turned frequently during cooking. Focus group participants said the primary motivator to food thermometer use was avoidance of foodborne illness. Educational materials positively affected thermometer use among consumers.Practical implicationsBehavior change will be facilitated by widespread availability of thermometers, inclusion of endpoint temperatures in recipes, and seeing others use food thermometers.Originality/valueThis project develops and delivers information to encourage use of food thermometers to assess endpoint temperature when cooking small meat items.

Background: Media use is a known contributor to childhood obesity, but encouraging reductions in screen use only partially eliminates media influence. We tested a family-centered, media literacy-oriented intervention to empower parents and children 9-14 years to skillfully use media to reduce marketing influences, enhance nutrition knowledge, improve the selection of foods in the home environment, and improve fruit and vegetable consumption. Methods: A community-based, 6-U program included separate parent and youth (ages 9-14 years) sessions, each of which was followed by a session together in which skills from the individual sessions were reinforced. A pretest to posttest field test with control groups (N = 189, parent-child dyads) tested the intervention's efficacy. Results: Standardized mean differences from the multiple analysis of covariance tests showed that the intervention group demonstrated improvements on parents' use of nutrition labels (0.29), the ratio of healthy to unhealthy food in the home environment (0.25), youth's fruit (0.30) and vegetable (0.25) consumption, parent and youth media literacy skills, and family communication dynamics about food. The largest effects found were for negative parental mediation (0.48) and parents' report of child-initiated discussion (0.47). Consistent but weaker results were revealed for Latinx families. Conclusions: This family-centered approach helped family members practice using media together to make better nutrition decisions without depending on the ability of parents to limit media use. It successfully addressed the often-negative impact of the media on behaviors that increase obesity risk while also cultivating the potential for media to provide useful information that can lead to behaviors that decrease obesity risk.

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture recommends use of food thermometers to safely cook small cuts of meat, yet most consumers do not use them. Consumers lack knowledge about how and why to use food thermometers with small cuts of meat. Opportunities exist for family and consumer science classes to provide education about thermometers to adolescents, who may disseminate this information to parents. The most successful nutrition programs are based on behavior‐change theories compared with standard interventions. A teaching kit for high school students was developed, based on the Health Belief and Transtheoretical Models, covering the “how's” and “why's” of using food thermometers. After participating in the lessons, students' knowledge about the reasons for using a thermometer and their self‐confidence in using thermometers increased. In addition, students were more ready to use a thermometer with small cuts of meat after completing the intervention.

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