MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL CENTER for HEALTHY LIVING: Obesity ...

The school and home food environments have long been targets for obesity intervention efforts for the obvious reason that these two places are the sources of the majority of kids' meals. But with kids consuming 25% of their daily calories between lunch and dinner, the after school environment is quickly becoming a new focus for obesity researchers.

Researchers explored "obesity prevention outside the lunchroom" during a symposium at the 2012 ISBNPA annual meeting.

"Even if we do a great job with school policies and school environments, we can undo that pretty quickly if it's not reinforced within the home and within out of school time activities," said Christina Economos, PhD (pictured right).

In fact, many healthy after-school programs for children, like organized sports, undermine their impact on child fitness and obesity by providing snacks of poor nutritional value.

Economos's research team at Tufts University conducted a nation-wide survey with 1,178 children ages 8-18. The survey consisted of six questions about access to fresh fruit, vegetables, chips, cookies, and candy in the home, at school, and out of school.

Economos found that as children grow older, they see a decrease in access to healthy foods and an increase in access to unhealthy foods. Tweens (ages 8-12) perceive after school environments to have less availability of healthy food options, while adolescents perceive the after school environment to have the lowest availability of healthy foods.

The development of healthy programs and policies in the after school environment is the focus of Child Obesity 180, a multi-sector team of senior-level leaders in obesity prevention, including Economos.

After reviewing the results of this study, Child Obesity 180 decided to lead an initiative called, Healthy Kids Out of School. They paired with 9 national organizations who have contact with a large number of adolescents and came up with three guiding principles for children involved in these organizations:

1. Drink right
2. Move more
3. Snack smart

The program strives to give children an opportunity to learn more about healthy eating and physical activity that is consistent across all nine organizations. They understand that obesity prevention goes beyond the lunchroom in order to make a change.

Written by
Amber Adams
Advertising Undergraduate Student, University of Illinois

The latest in research on promoting healthy diets and physical activity was presented and discussed in Austin, Texas at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA), which attracted over 600 researchers and professionals in research, policy and practice. The 2012 Annual Meeting, May 23-26, saw the presentation of ground-breaking studies, as well as updates on related applications of research, policy trends and legislation, via workshops, keynote speakers, panel discussions, research posters and oral presentations.

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