programs services eduction

Physical and Nutrition Education

Utilizing Community Partners to Prevent Obesity

The physical fitness and nutrition education program will be lead by the National Association on Teen Fitness and Exercise (NATFE) utilizing their curriculum which was developed for young people. NATFE is a non profit organization with a mission of promoting healthy eating and physical activity in youth and their families through culturally relevant community level interventions designed to affect behavior change. NATFE goal is to expand and enhance communities, states, and the nation’s effort to prevent and reduce obesity through initiatives that seek to build local collaborations to:

Raise the awareness about the prevalence of obesity in their community

Educate communities about the importance of physical activity and proper nutrition

Engage decision makers to encourage adoption of policies to promote community- based strategies that support healthy eating and increased physical activities

Emphasize polices and environments that ensure access to healthful food choices and opportunities for physical activities

Develop programs that provide support services to obese youth

Presently, NATFE has an established programs dealing with decreasing obesity by increasing physical activity and proper nutrition in Houston, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee and Washington, D.C.

Physical and Nutrition Education Model

The physical education program proposes a multi-level approach, focusing on behavioral and interpersonal but also on the organizational, community, and societal change necessary to support healthy eating and increased physical activity by children, youth and their families. This model is based on Integrated Social Support Approach which is the functional content of relationships that can be categorized along four broad types of supportive behaviors or acts.

Emotional support which will involve the provision of empathy, love, trust, and caring and will provide the most consistent relationship to improving the health status of our youth and their families. Intervention (Trained Staff who understand the importance of making each physical activity meaningful and fun and offers a variety of activities to all participants)

Instrumental support involves the provision of tangible aid and services that directly will assist our young people to becoming healthier and fit. Intervention ( the physical education department will have the latest up to date equipment as well as a variety of equipment that participants will be utilizing. The participants will be required to participate in group exercise classes (dance classes, yoga, boxing, martial arts and classical physical education classes) that will enable them to develop coordination)

Informational support is the provision of advice, suggestions, and information that our participants can use in addressing problems concerning wellness and health. Intervention (The physical education will have an obesity prevention information center with computers, journals, periodicals, and materials open to the participants as well as their parents and the community)

Appraisal support involves the provision of information that is useful for self-evaluation purposes, that is, feedback, affirmation, and social comparison. Intervention (Each participant will adopt physical fitness goals that will be monitored and evaluated monthly by the trained staff.)

This model insures that each of our participants will be looked on as individuals with different physical fitness needs that will require different approaches to enable them to become healthy adults. This model also provides a positive impact on our participant's eating practices and level of physical activity by providing increased opportunities for learning about healthful eating and focusing on life-long physical activities.

The Need

Overweigh/Obesity is the first chronic disease that is spreading at epidemic rates. At its current rate, it will soon become the costliest disease, surpassing cardiovascular disease. The percentage of overweight children has doubled during the past two decades and the percentage of overweight adolescents tripled.

In the District of Columbia (D.C.) data for children show an even greater increase. The most striking increase is in the 5 and 11 year age group, where there was a 40 percent increase in the prevalence of overweight between 1995 and 2000. D.C. Nutrition and Physical Activity Surveillance System data show an increased prevalence of overweight children and youth of both genders and across all races and ethnicities.

Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in the prevalence of overweight and obesity exist among adults in the U.S. and may occur in children and adolescents especially seen in urban cities that tend to have a greater minority population such as D.C. For all racial and ethnic groups combined, women of lower socioeconomic status are 50 percent more likely to be obese than those of higher socioeconomic status. Data from Healthy People 2010 are clear, however, that there are marked disparities in the impact of poor diet, physical inactivity and obesity on various groups of people, particularly by race/ethnicity and by education level. Furthermore, overweight adolescents have a 70% chance of becoming overweight or obese and an 80 percent chance of becoming obese or overweight if one parent is overweight. The health consequence of overweight and obesity is among the most burdensome public health issue faced by the nation. Considering this data, our physical education department will be dedicated to preventing obesity in youth by providing them with quality physical activities and proper nutrition education.

Proposed Strategy Highlights

A consortium of private, public, and community based organizations to provide resources to support of physical e.

Individually adapted health behavior change programs

Enhanced access for places for physical activity combined with informational outreach activities.

A volunteer driven force to provide support

A central obesity prevention center that will provide given resources to parents, families and communities.

Save the Date 9/2006 in Washington,DC