Evaluation of an After-School Obesity Prevention Program for Children

Abstract

Dissemination of obesity prevention programs in different settings is needed. Moreover, new outreach tools to teach parents healthy eating and exercise lessons provided in these programs are important to develop. The pilot studies presented in this paper examined the implementation of the Children's Healthy Eating and Exercise Program in two different after school programs in 2015 and 2016. Participants were elementary school-age children and their parents. Eight lessons were presented at each school. Child perceptions of healthy eating and exercise goals were examined as well as child knowledge retention and perceptions of behavior change. Parent perceptions of the program were analyzed. Results indicated that children reported improved knowledge and behaviors. Parents reported satisfaction with the program, but remained hard to reach. Children recalled key components of the healthy eating lessons at long-term follow-up assessments. In the second pilot study, children served as health coaches for teaching parents about family goals. Children believed they were successful at coaching parents, but they requested help in developing family eating and exercise goals. Improving outreach to parents and involving siblings remains a goal for future studies as does beginning to examine changes in eating and physical activity using food diaries and accelerometry.

Relatively speaking? Partners' and family members’ views and experiences of supporting breastfeeding: a systematic review of qualitative evidence

“…However, this was not universal, with one partner identified breastfeeding not being a common practice in his community [43]. In some African (Nigeria, Cameroon) and Asian cultures (Myanmar, Nepal), family members offered women-specific foods to aid breast milk quality and quantity, such as herbs, traditional medicines, teas, and soups [23,25,30,42,67,72,87]. Some partners and grandmothers such as those in Nigeria, Pakistan, African Americans in the USA, and white low-income men in Britain were concerned about the risk of disease (for example, tuberculosis and cancer) transmission via breastfeeding [23,40,72,87].…”

Using Photovoice to Improve Healthy Eating for Children Participating in an Obesity Prevention Program

“…A shortcoming of this study is that we are not certain why vegetable consumption decreased in one program, and perhaps conducting interviews would have provided insight as to why this occurred. In previous research, change in vegetable consumption has been equivocal, sometimes unchanged 8 and other times increased. 6 Increasing fruit intake is a child-friendly way to improve nutrition, and creative ideas are needed to improve vegetable consumption.…”

“…This was less conclusive than positive results of previous obesity prevention programs. 2 , 3 , 8 It is likely small samples, which limit power, was a factor limiting the potential to detect significant changes using quantitative analyses. However, children were learning new information—about the Stop Light Diet 24 and MyPlate.…”

“… 5 The Children’s Healthy Eating and Exercise (CHEE) Program is an after-school program with a successful history of improving children’s consumption of healthy foods, with children eating more fruits, exercising more, and children and parents learning about nutrition. 2 , 6 - 9 More information is needed about how children change their and their family’s eating behaviors. The current study focused on delivering and assessing the impact of healthy eating lessons using photovoice to allow children to capture change in eating behaviors.…”

Ideas for Using Fitbits to Assess Physical Activity in Children

“…We have worked to incorporate obesity prevention programming in after-school programs (e.g. : [2][3][4]). Lessons feature information on healthy eating and improving levels of physical activity at home.…”