Healthy Bearcats Program Evaluation

Carpenter, J. and Lacey, T.

University of Cincinnati, Department of Health Promotion and Education
INTRODUCTION
Obesity is at an epidemic proportion in the United States. Children
are not meeting their requirements for daily physical activity,
which contributes to weight management issues and unhealthy
lifestyle habits. Thus, children may not have access to health
information related to healthy eating and daily activity that will
enhance their opportunities to develop a healthy lifestyle. The
purpose of this presentation is to review information about the
Healthy Bearcats Eating and Exercise Program for children
attending a low-income school. The Traffic Light Diet, by Dr.
Epstein and colleagues, among other tools, was used to teach
children about healthy eating and exercise. For this program, red
foods are high in calories, yellow are cautionary (e.g., pasta), and
green foods are go foods, such as fruits and vegetables.

Week 7: students played red light green light with food naming
(using pictures), snake tag, buddy tag, and Simon Says in terms of
exercises. They had ants on a log and snails made out of apples for a
snack. Week 8: students learned about portion sizes and packing a
healthy lunch, completed a healthy maze worksheet, and played on the
playset outside. Week 9: students participated in a pizza party and
games. A focus group was held to discuss what students learned.

Children liked the program and reported improved knowledge

and healthy habits.
Limitations
Limitations of the pilot project included having a small sample and
lacking a control group. Having these sessions after school may
have also been a limitation due to shortened attention spans after a
full day of school. Inconsistent participation was clearly a
limitation for data collection. Parent involvement was very minor,
and may have limited the likelihood of the children practicing
healthy eating and exercise habits outside of the school setting.
Recommendations for Future Programing
and Additional Research
Our recommendations for future research include evaluating
program impact for a larger group of children. We suggest
ensuring that healthy eating and exercise goals are disseminated to
the childs household. Encouraging participants to pick a new
eating and exercise goal each week would make the programming
more applicable to the real world while still allowing for a more
individualized experience for each participant.

METHODS
Participants
Participants for this pilot study included six 4th and 5th graders, two
boys and four girls. All of the participants were Caucasian and from
low income families.
Procedures
Every week coaches met with the children individually to develop
weekly eating and exercise goals, record their progress on a ruler,
and set new goals for the following week. Coaches used
motivational interviewing to help children select weekly eating and
exercise goals and monitor their progress toward these goals.
The coaches also implemented weekly activities with the children
teaching them how to exercise and eat healthy.
Overview of Weekly Activities: Week 1: coaches introduced
themselves and discussed how to overcome roadblocks to meeting
weekly goals for eating and exercise. Week 2: coaches provided a
healthy snack and taught participants how to use the stoplight diet
(red, yellow and green foods) by using plastic food and magazine
pictures. Week 3: students learned about red, yellow, and green foods
by drawing what is in their refrigerator and circling the
corresponding color. They selected healthy foods to eat at home.
They also had a snack and played kickball. Week 4: students played
a healthy food game (healthy food hangman), learned about
MyPlate, and received a recipe for healthy tacos and a handout with
physical activity tips. Week 5: students learned how to read food
labels and played twister with and educational twist using the
stoplight diet (name red, green and yellow foods when landing on
these colors). They received recipes for healthy chicken nuggets and
a strawberry dessert. Week 6: coaches focused on sugar, by
demonstrating how many sugar cubes were in different kinds of
foods (discussion of health consequences of too much sugar.)
Students were provided with a healthy snack and practiced pushups,
squats, crunches, lunges and jumping jacks.

CONCLUSIONS

RESULTS
Children reported improved eating and activity levels in weekly
sessions with their coaches. During the focus group they reported
that they benefitted from participating in the program and would
like to continue the program. Children were also working to reduce
their screen time (time on the computer, iPad, cell phone and time
watching television) each day. Children reported improved healthy
lifestyle choices. Figure 1 (below) presents one childs progress as
rated on weekly rulers. [No eating goals were selected for Week 2
and no exercise goals were set for Week 4].

Findings have implications for health educators interested in

meeting children where they are schools and teaching them
information that they can use to improve their health throughout
their lives. Having programming, such as the Healthy Bearcats
Program, in a health or science class would allow for more
consistent participation and could provide a means for
incorporating this education into regular school programming.

SELECTED REFERENCES
Epstein, L.H. (2005). The Traffic Light Childhood Weight Control
Program: Traffic Light: Kids Program. University of Buffalo:
Author.
Suarez, M., & Mullins, S. (2008). Motivational interviewing and
.
pediatric
health behavior interventions. Journal of Developmental
and Behavioral Pediatrics, 29(5), 417-428.

We would like to thank Laura Nabors, Amanda Lynch, Bud

Strudthoff, and students from the Health Promotion and
Education Program at University of Cincinnati for all of
their hard work and dedication to helping with this
project.