Model Programs in Nutrition and Physical Activity with Young People

Hearts N’ Parks

Hearts N’ Parks is a national, community-based program supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Recreation and Parks Association (NRPA). Key elements and benefits of Hearts N’ Parks include activities that can be incorporated into a variety of nutrition and physical activity programs for people of all ages, training and resources for recreation and park departments to integrate heart healthy activities into existing activities or develop new activities, and evaluation materials to measure the program’s impact.
www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/prof/heart/obesity/hrt_n_pk

Pathways

Pathways also demonstrated reduced fat consumption and increased physical activity levels among third- through fifth-grade children on seven American Indian Nations throughout the United States. Pathways involves classroom curricula for third through fifth grades, extensive parental involvement programs, physical education, and a food service program. Pathways developed the program to be appropriate and appealing to American Indian children. The materials are very user-friendly and may be modified for use by other communities in addition to American Indian communities. The materials are described in detail and can be downloaded from the University of New Mexico Web site
http://hsc.unm.edu/pathways/

President's Challenge

The President's Council on Physical Fitness (www.fitness.gov) serves as a catalyst to promote, develop and implement physical activity/fitness and sports programs. Their landmark program, the President's Challenge, recognizes young people's participation in regular physical activity and exercise with presidential recognition. With three distinct program areas – active lifestyle, physical fitness, and health fitness - all young people are winners in activity and fitness! In the fall of 2002, parents, teachers and grandparents will be challenged to walk the talk and earn their own Presidential Adult Active Lifestyle award. An electronic log for both young people and adults is available on the President's Challenge Web site
www.presidentschallenge.org.

SPARK

SPARK consists of multiple curricula that have demonstrated improved physical activity levels among young people ages 5 through 14. SPARK consists of classroom and out-of-school activity programs to increase moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, as well as physical activity skill levels. The creators of SPARK have done multiple research studies over the past 15 years with positive outcomes (24). The SPARK materials can be obtained from the University of California at San Diego Web site
http://www.sparkpe.org/.

Team Nutrition

The United States Department of Agriculture has launched Team Nutrition and includes extensive resources for schools to improve eating patterns through curriculum and food service.
www.fns.usda.gov/tn/

TEENS

TEENS (Teens Eating for Energy and Nutrition at School) is a school-based, group-randomized trial that evaluated school-environment, classroom, and family interventions to increase fruit and vegetable intake and decrease fat intake of low-income young adolescents to reduce their future risk of cancer. TEENS was implemented during a two-year period with cohort students in middle and junior high schools. The study was conducted in 16 schools, half were randomly assigned to the comparison condition and half to the intervention condition. (23) Peer leaders reporting the largest increases in fruit, vegetable, and lower fat food consumptions. Students exposed to classroom plus environment interventions also improved, Copies of downloadable TEENS materials can be found
www.epi.umn.edu/cyhp/r_teens.htm

The Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH)

Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) is a coordinated school health program designed to promote physical activity, healthy food choices and prevent tobacco use in elementary school-aged children. By teaching children that eating healthy and being physically active everyday can be FUN, the CATCH Program has proved that establishing healthy habits in childhood can promote behavior change that carries into adulthood.

The CATCH Program focuses on coordinating four components: The Eat Smart school nutrition program, K-5 classroom curriculum, a physical education program and a family program. The coordination of health messages between these four component areas is critical to positively impacting children’s knowledge and behavior. For over 10 years CATCH has guided schools, families and children in the process of being healthy. CATCH, the largest school-based health promotion study in the U.S., has demonstrated that behaviors such as eating foods high in saturated fat and physical inactivity can be changed. (www.catchinfo.org) CATCH materials can be obtained from Flaghouse at 1-800-793-7900 or are accessible online at
http://www.flaghouse.com/CatchPE.asp.

Packaged Programs

Many credible organizations have packaged nutrition education programs that could be used as part of a Champions Grant program proposal. The following packaged programs are based on recommended practices:

BodyWorks Program and Toolkit

BodyWorks is a multi-session obesity prevention program designed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's Health to help parents and caregivers of young adolescents (ages 9 to 13) improve family eating and activity habits. Available in English and Spanish, the program focuses on parents as role models and provides them with hands-on tools to make small, specific behavior changes to help maintain healthy weight and prevent obesity. BodyWorks follows a train-the-trainer model and is distributed through community and faith-based organizations, state health agencies, non-profit organizations, worksites, faith-based organizations, state health agencies, non-profit organizations, health clinics, hospitals and health care systems. To learn more about how to bring BodyWorks to your community, please visit www.womenshealth.gov/bodyworks or send an email to bodyworks@hagersharp.com.

Dairy Council

A variety of educational materials are available for adults and children including Health Education Kits: materials to help educate patients on topics including 3-A-Day of Dairy, Healthy Weight and African American health.
www.nationaldairycouncil.org/nationaldairycouncil/health/materials

Dole 5-A-Day

This program includes education materials for children, teachers and parents to help increase consumption of fruits and vegetables.
http://www.dole5aday.com/

FitnessGram

The Fitness Gram is a test that is administered to the students at the beginning and at the end of a semester. This test is used to monitor the student's fitness improvement through the years to help them understand the benefits of staying physically active. The test focuses on muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, body composition, and cardiovascular endurance.
www.fitnessgram.net/

Go With the Whole Grain

Based on the 2005 Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid, Go With the Whole Grain is an educational tool kit that provides practical resources to help your patients learn about and choose more whole grain. This resource includes a continuing education resource for health professionals, as well as patient education materials
www.bellinstitute.com

Kidnetic

Kidnetic at www.kidnetic.com is a nutrition, fitness and health website for youth that could support other programming. The website has high quality online assessments and games and is highly interactive with excellent graphics. Information for parents is also available.

Take 10™

TAKE 10!™ is a classroom-based physical activity program for elementary schools and is designed to add at least 10 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity during the school day. TAKE 10!™ lessons integrate physical activity with grade specific academic objectives to reinforce required learning.
www.uchsc.edu/nutrition/Barry/take10.htm

USDA Team Nutrition

Team Nutrition is an initiative of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service to support the Child Nutrition Programs through training and technical assistance for foodservice, nutrition education for children and their caregivers, and school and community support for healthy eating and physical activity.
www.fns.usda.gov/tn/

Other Programs

Previous Champions grants recipients can also provide ideas for effective programs. Many other innovative programs have not yet been evaluated or have had only limited evaluation, but may also be appropriate for the grants program. To use such a program, as part of your proposal, provide a description of the program and explain why the program has potential to impact the eating and physical activity patterns of the targeted group.