A social marketing approach to promoting healthful eating and physical activity in low-income and ethnically diverse schools

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the short-term outcome of the social marketing approach used in Project FIT, we developed a school-and community-based programme for promoting healthful eating and physical activity in kindergarten to 5th-grade children and their parents. Design: A 2-year quasi-experiment for children and two cross-sectional surveys for parents. Setting: We included low-income, urban and ethnically diverse elementary schools and neighbourhoods in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. Method: Students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades were surveyed in four intervention schools (four time points, N with at least one time point measurement = 664) and two control schools (N = 195). Parents of intervention students were surveyed at baseline (N = 286) and follow-up (N = 215). Key dependent variables included self-reported healthful eating and physical activity. Key independent variables included awareness, knowledge, motivation and attitudes towards Project FIT. Analysis: We analysed generalised linear mixed models and generalised estimation equation (GEE) models for the student surveys and mean difference tests and logistic regressions for the parent surveys. Results: The proportion of students who were aware of Project FIT increased over time. GEE models showed that selected key dependent variables were significantly associated with self-reported healthful eating and physical activity. Parents were more aware of Project FIT at follow-up compared to the baseline survey, and their attitudes were significantly associated with increased healthful eating (vegetables, fruits and whole grains). Conclusion: The social marketing approach utilised in Project FIT contributed to increasing awareness and achieving behavioural goals of healthful eating and physical activity.

School Health Program: Impacting Physical Activity Behaviors Among Disadvantaged Students

“…A noteworthy finding was that without intervention provided during summer break, the regression effect occurred during time 2 and time 3. This indicated the importance of consistent intervention efforts in program to maintain participants' attention or interest in physical activity involvement …”

“…Another factor for an effective program may be parent involvement in the program. Four of the programs involved family members to reinforce lessons taught . In these programs, physical activity behaviors for participants were increased.…”

“…In these programs, physical activity behaviors for participants were increased. Another study reviewed, researchers utilized social marketing components, for instance, branding and promotion strategies to promote physical activity for primary school students and their parents. This program demonstrated its positive impact on participants' physical activity behaviors.…”

Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), Crisis Communication Principles and the COVID-19 Response in South Korea

“…The most relevant areas of research are social marketing, crisis communication, and normative influence. Social marketing refers to the use of marketing techniques to promote safe and healthy behaviours (Andreasen, 1995; Grier & Bryant, 2005; Paek et al, 2015). Just as commercial marketing promotes products by making them as available, attractive, and cheap as possible, social marketing tries to promote prosocial behaviour changes by making them convenient and easy to adopt.…”

“…As part of the persuasion strategy to encourage people’s participation in and compliance with preventive measures such as testing, mask wearing, hand sanitising, and social distancing, communication campaigns used principles from research on normative influence (Van Bavel et al, 2020). Two types of normative messages—descriptive and injunctive—are commonly used to influence public health behaviours (Cialdini et al, 1990; Paek et al, 2012, 2014). Descriptive norm messages provide information about how most people do in fact behave.…”