Abstract

Lack of physical activity and obesity costs the US

approximately 24 billion dollars a year in health care
costs. Obesity is most prevalent in low-income and
Hispanic families. Obesity affects all aspects of
childrens growth and development, including their
gross motor development and social skills. Through
an 8-week dance class intervention, this study aimed
to increase gross motor development and social
development in Head Start preschool-aged children
by increasing daily physical activity in the children
and their parents. During each week of the
intervention, parents and children learned about the
importance of physical activity, learned different
Latin dances, and participated in group
discussion. While we recruited eight families for this
pilot project, only one family completed the program
and provided pre-post data for analysis. Using the
two pre-school aged children in the family as a case
study, both physical and social activity in the
children increased as the childs parent involvement
in the program increased. While faced with many
limitations, this pilot project exemplifies the need for
further research involving physical activity
interventions for preschoolers and their parents.
This case study indicates that continued education
and intervention might increase physical activity and
health awareness in low-income Spanish-speaking
families, leading to a healthier living environment for
the children.

Dancing With The Pack:

A Pilot Dance Intervention
Caroline Horosko1 and Ben Cook1,2; Faculty Mentor: Suzie Goodell3 ; 1
Department of Biology; 2 Department of Foreign Languages and Literature; 3
Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutrition Sciences

Methods
Participants:
Parents and their pre-school children from a Head Start in
Chatham County.
Data Collection:
Pre-Post intervention:
Height & Weight of parents
Resting heart rate of parents
Physical activity knowledge questionnaire completed
by parent
Pre-Intervention:
Demographic questionnaire completed by parent
During Intervention:
Daily pedometer step counts from parent
Childs Gross Motor Development level

Intervention:
Six week dance class

Discussion
Due to poor participant attrition, we only had 1 family
complete this study and provide both pre- and postintervention data. Therefore, we could not test our
hypotheses as first intended.

However, we were able to assess the challenges associated

with this type of intervention study.
Challenge 1: Attention Span of Preschool-aged Children
We designed our intervention to include a 1 hour lesson
each week. However, a 3-5 year old child cannot focus their
attention on one activity for this long.
After the first class, an alternative lesson plan had to be
created in order to keep young children focused on the goal
of the intervention. The new lesson plans included time for:
Dance
Gross Motor Skill Development through Games
Simple Discussions on Nutrition and Physical Activity
In the future, interventions aimed at 3-5 year olds need to
include multiple, stimulating activities to continuously
engage children through the length of the study
Challenge 2: Assessing Gross Motor Development (GMD)

At baseline, all children scored high on the GMD tool used

to assess preschoolers. Therefore, we were unable to
assess improvements in GMD due to the intervention.
Additional tools evaluating additional skills could be used to
assess GMD as childrens skills progress.
After completing this pilot study there are multiple details
that should be altered before any continuation study begins:
Researchers need to take into account the season and
weather.
All researchers need to be proficient in languages of
participants in the study.
Destination of study site. The study site for this
intervention was chosen by which Head Start needed extra
support. However, the city was a long distance from NCSU,
and many problems arose as a result of the distance.
Although this was a city that needed increased attention, I
believe Head Start sites anywhere in North Carolina would
benefit in the same way.

Each class contained 3 parts:

Conclusion
Background
Physical development at 3-5 years of age is vital
for shaping the overall health for adolescence
and adulthood. Increased parent school
involvement and more active types of parent
involvement have shown their pre-school aged
children possessing greater abilities in areas of
live involving the Vineland domains (expressive
language, domestic skills, play and leisure, and
gross motor skills) and greater mastery of early
basic school skills in all subject areas. However:
With increase in single parent homes, there has
been a decrease in parent involvement (1).
Obesity rates are higher in low-income and
ethnic minority families (2)
Obesity and lack of physical activity:
greatly effects gross motor development in
young children.
leads to higher health costs (3).
In as much, Lower intensity, local, communitybased interventions have the potential to support
lifestyle change but need to be tested in a
diverse group (4).

Objective & Hypotheses

Part I : Introduction to physical activity

The objectives of this pilot study were to:

determine the relationship between level of
parent involvement/knowledge in areas of
physical activity and a childs basic emotional
and physical development AND
increase a childs basic emotional and physical
development by increasing their parental
involvement/knowledge in areas of physical
activity

Part II: Dance Lesson:

Parents Learned Salsa and Rumba.
Children focus on GMD and simple physical
activity knowledge.

Part III: Set personal physical activity goals

for parents and their families.

Interventions aimed at preschool children

should focus on multiple short lessons to
accommodate the young childs short
attention span.
Physical activity interventions involving both
parents and children should be more childfocused to engage the child as much as the
adult.

Acknowledgements/References

The hypotheses for this pilot study were:

the level of parental involvement in their childs
physical activity is positively correlated with
childs level of social and physical development
AND
a dance-based intervention will increase a
childs basic emotional and physical
development by increasing their parental
involvement/knowledge in areas of physical
activity

We would like to thank the Undergraduate Research Department for

our grant that made this project possible. Thanks to the office of
CALS Honors as well as to our Faculty Sponsor Dr. Suzie Goodell.
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