Addressing Health Disparities in Middle School Students' Nutrition and Exercise

Abstract

Those with low income, especially women of African American and Hispanic heritage have the greatest risk of inactivity and obesity. A 4-session (Internet and video) intervention with healthy snack and gym labs was tested in 2 (gym lab in 1) urban low-middle-income middle schools to improve low fat diet and moderate and vigorous physical activity.1 The gym lab was particularly beneficial (p =.002). Fat in diet decreased with each Internet session in which students participated. Percentage of fat in food was reduced significantly p =.018 for Black, White, and Black/Native American girls in the intervention group. Interventions delivered through Internet and video may enable reduction of health disparities in students by encouraging those most at risk to consume 30% or less calories from fat and to engage in moderate and vigorous physical activity.

Changing the tide: an Internet/video exercise and low-fat diet intervention with middle-school students

“…The intervention was based on the HP/TM, which was previously described and tested in a classroom format and in a four-session Internet/video format (Frenn, Malin, Bansal, Delgado, et al, 2003). In the current study, an eight-session Blackboard (http://www.blackboard.com/) platform-delivered Internet approach with four 2-to 3-min videos was used in seventh-grade science class.…”

“…As in our prior work (Frenn, Malin, Bansal, Delgado, et al, 2003), we did not wish to make a Type III error in which the study outcomes are evaluated based on the number of interventions delivered, rather than the number in which subjects actually participated. For that reason, subjects were asked to respond to questions in each module by recording their answers in notebooks provided and on-line.…”

“…b Concept was not measured in current study but included based on prior research (Frenn, Malin, Bansal, Delgado, et al, 2003).…”

“…Prior research had demonstrated that use of a peerled gym session increased physical activity in comparison to the single physical activity Internet session and video (Frenn, Malin, Bansal, Delgado, et al, 2003), and we sought to discover if additional Internet sessions might yield similar improvements in activity. We sough to discover whether the previous improvement had been a result of the additional session rather than the peer interaction.…”

“…Based on subjects' responses to the first four sessions in prior research (Frenn, Malin, Bansal, Delgado, et al, 2003), tailored computer-delivered feedback was generated for common subject responses (Fig. 2).…”