If you're a kid on the streets, jumping from shelter to couch to doorway each night, a square meal isn't likely a part of your regular diet.

That's exactly why the young leaders at Wind Youth Services all of them formerly homeless put nutrition at the top of their list of health topics to teach the vulnerable teens who spend their days there.

It's also why it will be so hard for the teens to put their lessons about healthy eating into practice.

"You'll see them come in in the morning, and their breakfast is a bag of Hot Cheetos and a soda, because that is what is available on the way to get here," said Melissa Binger, manager of Wind's health program.

Homeless and near-homeless youth ages 11 to 22 come to the nonprofit's center off Del Paso Boulevard each weekday to study, shower, relax, eat a free lunch and find support services in a safe place. Six young people who once needed those services themselves now work as paid, part-time "health ambassadors," orienting newcomers to the center, connecting them with resources and giving health tips.

When a volunteer suggested they design and teach health education classes to their peers, they chose to start with nutrition.

"When you're in a not-so-safe situation, moving a lot, you eat when you can," said ambassador Kevin Johnson, 18, who has a home in Natomas now but speaks from personal experience. "The kids who come here, a lot of them don't have a lot of money. It's expensive to be healthy."

The National Coalition for the Homeless has reported that more than one in three homeless people in the U.S. are children under age 18, and that one in five children have so little food that they go to bed and wake up hungry.

The ambassadors delivered their first nutrition class on Thursday to about a dozen youths at Wind.

Johnson handed out a menu with options like Buffalo chicken wings, Doritos, string cheese and Snickers bars. He invited each student to pick an item, "And we'll prepare it for you," he said.

Continued here:
Sacramento youth services center teaches nutrition