News

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Information on the Eastside Childhood Obesity Prevention and Wellness Program

Provided by the Diabetes Resource Center, Santa Barbara

The Diabetes Resource Center (DRC) developed the Eastside Childhood Obesity Prevention and Wellness Program (Eastside Wellness Program, or EWP) to address the problem of childhood obesity in the primarily Latino Franklin Elementary School in Santa Barbara. Launched in January 2009, the EWP’s essential elements are fitness and nutrition programming.

Upon entering the Eastside Wellness Program, all of the approximately 500 children at Franklin School children have their Body Mass Index (BMI) calculated. Those whose BMI identifies them as overweight or obese participate, with their parents, in Salud y Bienestar (Health and Wellness), a ten-week program that includes screening, education and family training. Salud y Bienestar was developed by Dr. Andria Ruth for the Carpinteria Childhood Obesity Prevention Initiative, and is very popular with the families who participate. It has also proved highly successful in maintaining or reducing the BMI of its participants.

Franklin students receive nutrition education during the day using material developed and field-tested with children participating in the Carpinteria program. An on-campus garden of ten raised garden beds has been installed and planted at Franklin School, and is being successfully maintained with student participation. Garden instruction is based upon the Junior Master Gardener curriculum from Texas A & M University. The garden program provides benefits well beyond the actual gardening experience. It is a catalyst to teach children about nutrition, to help them to understand where their food comes from, and to help them make healthy choices about the food they eat. It is also a location where children and parents can work and learn together – and eat the vegetables they raise. A Garden Café was introduced during the summer of 2009, allowing children to pay a nominal price to sample foods prepared by a certified chef using fresh, locally grown produce and other healthy ingredients.

The EWP provides physical fitness programming based on the SPARK Physical Fitness curriculum for grades K – 6. Developed by a team of researchers at San Diego State University with funding from the National Institutes of Health, the curriculum is well-researched and has demonstrated highly favorable outcomes. Through SPARK, children are introduced to a balance of skills, concepts, fitness, and rhythm and game experiences.

The DRC physical fitness program measures children’s fitness using uses FitnessGram, a fitness assessment developed at the Cooper Institute in Texas. Students are compared not to each other, but to health fitness standards, carefully established for each age and gender, that indicate good health. Once the assessment has been done, the FitnessGram report provides objective, personalized feedback and positive reinforcement which are vital to changing behavior and serve as a communications link between teachers, parents and students. The FitnessGram assesses (1) aerobic capacity, (2) body composition, and (3) muscle strength, endurance, and flexibility.

The physical fitness, nutrition and gardening activities provided by the EWC to Franklin students combine to provide a comprehensive approach to obesity prevention designed to develop lasting behaviors to support fitness and healthy nutrition Changes in behavior will be reinforced in the coming year through the influence of Promotoras de Salud – peer health educators.

Although the DRC has its own Promotoras in Carpinteria, on the Santa Barbara Eastside we are developing a plan with the Eastside Neighborhood Clinic to connect their Promotoras with children and families participating in the Eastside Wellness Program at Franklin School. To achieve this purpose, the DRC will offer additional training regarding obesity and diabetes prevention to the Clinic’s Promotoras. Follow-up with Franklin families at home will be a natural extension of the Clinic Promotoras’ current efforts to promote community health. Promotoras teach and support families as they adopt healthy lifestyle practices and serve as role models as they advocate for access to healthy foods and fitness opportunities in the community. For overweight or obese children and their parents/families at Franklin, Promotoras will be an important extension of the Salud y Bienestar program.

The success of the Eastside Wellness Program is measured by recording children’s BMI’s at program outset and conclusion. Results for the 2009 pilot year have been very positive and are summarized below:

• Intervention began in January 2009. Data points in January 2009 (444 children), August 2009 (457 children) and January 2010 (452 children)
• Conclusions: Overall decreases in the prevalence of obesity and overweight at each time point, with a more marked decrease with an increasing length of time
• The prevalence of obesity decreased from 30 percent to 25 percent in one year.
• The prevalence of overweight and obesity combined decreased from 55 percent to 42 percent in this time period.
• The results for girls were even more impressive in the area of declining obesity, with a decrease in the prevalence of obesity from 26 percent to 19 percent, and a decrease in the prevalence of obesity and overweight combined from 48 percent to 38 percent.

Of the 500 children targeted by the Eastside Wellness Program in the proposed grant year, 275 will test as overweight or obese; of these, 220 children will maintain or decrease weight as verified by Body Mass Index. Ninety percent of children will improve conditioning as measured by FitnessGram. Seventy-five percent of children will make at least one positive change in knowledge and behavior as appropriate for age level as measured by pre- and post-test.