School-based interventions improve childhood obesity and academic performance

¶ … quasi-experimental quantitative study on the topic of childhood obesity. The topic of the research was a comprehensive approach to nutritional improvement in a pilot study involving four schools in which interventions were implemented and a fifth school used for experimental control. The interventions consisted of a holistic elementary school-based obesity prevention program intended to keep children at a normal, healthy weight, and to improve their overall health status and their academic performance (Hollar, Lombardo, Lopez-Mitnik, et al., 2010). More specifically, the interventions consisted of independent variables in the form of modified dietary choices in school, nutrition/lifestyle educational information to students and parents, physical activity, and general wellness projects. The pendent variables consisted of quantitative measurement of body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, and measures of academic performance (Hollar, Lombardo, Lopez-Mitnik, et al., 2010).

Research Design and Methodology

The study involved providing students better nutritional choices in school, supplemental education on nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices, increased physical activity, and nutrition and health information distributed to parents. Since the unit of data analysis pertained to schools instead of individual subjects, the data analysis relied upon cluster randomization, according to which the mean response in relation to each variable was subject to both cluster-to-cluster analysis and individual-based analysis (Hollar, Lombardo, Lopez-Mitnik, et al., 2010).

Results

The interventions corresponded to statistically significant improvements in all of the experimental variables (Hollar, Lombardo, Lopez-Mitnik, et al., 2010). More specifically, over the course of two years, the students in the four intervention schools exhibited health improvements as measured by blood pressure, BMI, and academic performance. Moreover, while the benefits were apparent across the entire population of students, low-income and minority students exhibited even more pronounced benefits than the entire population more generally (Hollar, Lombardo, Lopez-Mitnik, et al., 2010).

Relevance and Implications

The study is extremely relevant to human health, particularly in connection with the relative health of grade school children and the connection between quantitatively measurable health benefits and the specific approach tested by the study. The implications of the study are that childhood health can be significantly improved through holistic interventions of the type employed in the pilot study. By providing better nutritional choices in school, increasing education about health, nutrition, and exercise, and by including parents in the educational component, the methodology employed in this study were empirically demonstrated to improve human health as measured by the objective health data of blood pressure and BMI. The study also demonstrated that improving nutrition and student health also correspond to improved academic performance. Finally, the study demonstrated that the types of interventions targeted are even more necessary and beneficial to low-income student populations.

Reference

Danielle Hollar, Michelle Lombardo, Gabriella Lopez-Mitnik, Theodore L. Hollar, Marie

Almon, Arthur S. Agatston, and Sarah E. Messiah. "Elective Multi-level, Multi-sector, School-based Obesity Prevention Programming Improves Weight, Blood

Pressure, and Academic Performance, Especially among Low-Income, Minority

Children." Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Vol. 21;

(2010): 93 -- 108.