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An After-School Program for Overweight Kids

March 17, 2005
After-school programs are known for keeping kids safe and secure, but a new federally-funded project led by Kansas State University researchers will study how such programs could also be used to prevent kids from being overweight.

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Through the Healthy Out-of School Places Overweight Prevention Project, researchers will study how adding proven child nutrition and physical activity components to after-school or out-of-school programs, like 4-H or the Boys and Girls Club, could help curb the growing number of children who are overweight, according to David Dzewaltowski, the project's principal investigator.

Dzewaltowski is director of K-State's Community Health Institute and a professor of kinesiology. The institute has received a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to implement the four-year project.

Dzewaltowski said the project is one of the first of its kind in the nation to combine safety and security, education, enrichment and youth development components of after- or out-of- school programs with healthy nutrition and physical activity components.

"This project will particularly promote physical activity after school," Dzewaltowski said. "We'll offer at least 30 minutes a day of good physical activity, a healthy snack and a once-a-week active learning experience for kids about healthy eating, physical activities and developing skills in these areas."

Programs to participate in the project are in the process of being selected, Dzewaltowski said, with the project getting under way at the start of the 2005-2006 school year. The first year will include gathering baseline data, the next two years will focus on intervention efforts and the fourth year will be for follow-up work.

"Our study has a true experiment design and we'll really be able to evaluate the effectiveness of this project," Dzewaltowski said.

Dzewaltowski said the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicates that the prevalence of overweight among children has increased from 4 percent in the late '60s and early '70s to 16 percent in 1999-2002.

At the state level, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and state legislators have proposed the development of programs to reduce the incidence of obesity and other preventable chronic health conditions in Kansans.

The Healthy Out-of School Places Overweight Prevention Project is just one of the ways K-State's Community Health Institute is studying ways to keep Kansas kids healthier and more active.

The institute has been the recipient of several grants in the last few years, totaling more than $3 million, that include initiatives and projects to help middle school students make healthier food choices, determining childhood predictors of adolescent girls' physical activity, developing a physical activity curriculum for preschoolers and helping the state of Kansas in the collection of data on overweight children.

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