Advancing School & Community Engagement Now for Disease Prevention (ASCEND)
Complete Project
Title:
Advancing School & Community Engagement Now for Disease Prevention (ASCEND)
Status:
Completed
Topic:
Nutrition / Diet;Physical Activity;School-based
Funding Source:
Independence School District, with funding from the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City
Funding Period:
2009-2012
Purpose:
To compare the impact of offering a nutrition program and a physical activity program in elementary schools vs. further reinforcing the messages of these programs in the school, home, and supermarket settings on students’ nutrition knowledge, behavior, and fitness. The Nutrition Detectives program provides “5 clues” to make healthful food choices, and ABC for Fitness offers 30 minutes of daily classroom-based physical activity.
Further Study Details:
This was a follow-up to a 2006-2009 study (Nutrition Detectives/ABC for Fitness: Nutrition and Physical Activity Education for Elementary School Children) conducted in partnership with the Independence School District (ISD) in Missouri. Our 2009-2012 study tested the effects of expanding our health promotion at a broader level to reach ISD students and their families. We randomly assigned ISD elementary schools to either a standard (8 schools) or high-intensity (9 schools) intervention, with 9 schools in the Raytown School District (RSD) serving as a control. The standard intervention offered the ND and ABC programs to third grade students. The high-intensity intervention also offered enhancements: (1) school setting (family nights to promote healthful eating and activity; nutrition & fitness articles in school newsletters; classroom pedometer challenge; healthy snacks and exercise breaks at open houses; increased physical activity promotion in after-school programs); (2) home setting (family kits to promote nutrition and physical activity); (3) supermarket setting (taste tests, recipes, cost comparisons, scavenger hunt for healthful foods)
Findings:
Despite a high level of family engagement, we found no difference between standard, high-intensity, and control groups with regard to changes in body mass index (BMI). ISD students in both groups improved in all physical fitness measures, and some improvements were higher than those found among RSD students, but a fitness comparison of standard- and high-intensity groups within ISD yielded mixed results. Both intervention levels appeared to offer some benefits compared to control schools, but little additional benefit seemed to result from the high-intensity vs. the standard intervention. It is possible that the standard intervention led to a certain plateau of improved outcomes that could not have been further improved by offering an enhanced intervention.
Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center