BACKGROUND
HealthCorps provides school wellness programming using curricula to promote changes in nutrition, mental health and physical activity behaviors. The research objective was to evaluate effects of implementing its curricula on nutrition, mental health and physical activity knowledge and behavior.
METHODS
Pre- and post-survey data were collected (N = 2255) during the 2012-13 academic year from 14 New York City public high schools. An 18-item knowledge questionnaire addressed 3 domains; 26 behavioral items were analyzed by factor analysis to identify 6 behavior domains, breakfast being a seventh one-item domain. We examined the effects stratified by sex, applying mixed-effects models to take into account clustering effects of schools and participants adjusted for age.
RESULTS
The HealthCorps program significantly increased all 3 knowledge domains (p < .05), and significantly changed several key behavioral domains. Boys significantly increased fruits/vegetables intake (p = .03). Girls increased acceptance of new fruits/vegetables (p = .03) and breakfast consumption (p = .04), and decreased sugar-sweetened beverages and energy dense food intake (p = .03). The associations between knowledge and behavior were stronger in boys than girls.
CONCLUSION
The HealthCorps program significantly increased participants’ knowledge on nutrition, mental health and physical activity. It also improved several key behavioral domains, which are targets of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines to address obesity in youth.
BackgroundAdolescent obesity is a major public health concern. Open to all high school students regardless of weight status, HealthCorps is a nationwide program offering a comprehensive high school-based participatory educational program to indirectly address obesity. We tested a hypothesis that the HealthCorps program would decrease BMI z-scores among overweight or obese students, and reduce obesity rates, and evaluated its effects on health knowledge and behaviors.MethodsHealthCorps aimed to improve student knowledge and behaviors regarding nutrition quality, physical activity, sleep, breakfast intake, and mental resilience. Participating students received through HealthCorps coordinators weekly or bi-weekly classroom lessons either for a semester or a year in addition to various during- and after-school health-promoting activities and mentorship. Self-reported height and weight were collected along with questionnaires assessing knowledge and behaviors during 2013-2014 academic year among 14 HealthCorps-participating New York City high schools. This quasi experimental two-arm pre-post trial included 611 HealthCorps and 221 comparison arm students for the analytic sample. Sex-specific analyses stratified by weight status were adjusted for age and Hispanic ethnicity with clustering effects of schools and students taken into account.ResultsHealthCorps female overweight/obese and obese student had a significant decrease in BMI z-scores (post-pre delta BMI z-score = −0.16 (95%CI = (−0.26, −0.05), p = 0.004 for the former; and = −0.23 (−0.44, −0.03), p = 0.028, for the latter) whereas comparison female counterparts did not. The HealthCorps students, but not the comparison students, had a significant increase for all knowledge domains except for the breakfast realm, and reported a greater number of significant behavior changes including fruit and vegetable intake and physical activities.ConclusionsThe HealthCorps program was associated with reduced BMI z-score in overweight/obese and obese female adolescents, with enhanced health knowledge and behavior for both sexes. With its wide reach, this may be a promising program to help combat adolescent obesity in schools.Trial registrationThis study is registered as a clinical trial at the ClinicalTrials.gov registry with trial number NCT02277496 on September 10, 2014 (Retrospectively registered).Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12887-017-0975-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Evidence of the benefits of culinary nutrition education is growing in the literature. Culinary nutrition education programs are naturally experiential, social, skills-based, and effective in improving nutrition-related beliefs, knowledge, and behaviors. In this article, we explore a set of motivational experiences in culinary nutrition education that have been identified as “drivers” of behavior change. These drivers emerged from 20 years of implementation and evaluation of hands-on cooking programs across the life span in more than 30 states within the United States. From these drivers, we developed a framework to guide both new and existing programs that can be best designed to motivate behavior change. These frameworks add value to the work of culinary nutrition educators and will inform and support future culinary nutrition education programs. In future research, health educators implementing skills-based health promotion programs in diverse settings can test the application of this framework to determine its relevance in broader areas.
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