The Stanford Adolescent Heart Health Program

Abstract

This study was designed to create, implement, and test a school-based multiple risk factor reduction program for high school students. All tenth graders in four senior high schools (N = 1447) from two school districts participated in the study. Within each district, one school was assigned at random to receive a special 20-session CVD risk reduction intervention and one school served as a control. The schools were matched for size and distribution of racial groups before randomization. At a two-month follow-up, knowledge gains were significantly greater for students in the treatment group on each of the risk factor domains tested: nutrition/diet (p less than 0.0001), physical activity (p less than 0.0001), and cigarette smoking (p less than 0.0001). Compared to controls, a higher proportion of those in the treatment group who were not exercising regularly at baseline, reported regular exercise at follow-up (p less than 0.0003). Almost twice as many baseline experimental smokers in the treatment group reported quitting at follow-up while only 5.6% of baseline experimental smokers in the treatment group graduated to regular smoking compared to 10.3% in the control group (p = 0.009). Students in the treatment group were more likely to report that they would choose heart healthy snack items (p less than 0.0001). Beneficial treatment effects were observed for resting heart rate (p less than 0.0001), BMI (p = 0.05), triceps skinfold thickness (p = 0.003), and subscapular skinfold thickness (p = 0.01). The results suggest that it is feasible to provide CVD risk reduction training to a large segment of the population through school-based primary prevention approaches.

Promoting Physical Activity in Children and Youth

“…Students in the intervention schools reported significant knowledge gains and increases in regular exercise. 50,54 Positive treatment effects also were observed for BMI, skinfolds, and resting heart rate. LEAP was a comprehensive physical activity intervention designed to change the instructional program and school environment to increase support of physical activity for ninth-grade girls.…”

The effects of school-based physical activity interventions on students' health-related fitness knowledge: A systematic review

“…Twelve of these studies had positive effects on students' health-related fitness knowledge, six studies had a positive effect on students' physical activity levels, and five studies significantly influenced students' fitness levels. Seven of these 12 studies revealed intervention effects both on health-related fitness knowledge and on physical activity (four studies: Harrell et al, 1996;Killen et al, 1989;Manios & Kafatos, 1999;Marcus, Channing Wheeler, Cullen, & Crane, 1987) or fitness levels (three studies: Bush, Zuckerman, Taggart, et al, 1989;Fardy, White, Haltiwanger-Schmitz, & Magel, 1996;Perry et al, 2002). Finally, the results concerning the one study by Caballero et al (2003) with a high methodological quality are unclear because on the one hand, positive effects on students' physical activity were revealed from the data assessed by questionnaire and on the other hand, no intervention effects were shown from the data assessed by a physical activity motion sensor.…”

Childhood obesity: a growing public health concern

“…Most comprehensive community-based interventions have focused on cardiovascular disease risk reduction [274,275]. Successful obesity interventions are contingent on targeting multiple aspects of children's environments [276].…”