Fit Not Fat

1
Fit Not Fat

• How Arkansans Are Responding To The Child Obesity
  Epidemic
• Arkansas Obesity Policy Summit
• May 22, 2008

2
Project Questions

• One Who is doing what where?
• Two What is being measured?
• Three How do we measure impact?
• Four How do we sustain these efforts?
• Five Can these efforts have more impact?

3
Our Methods

• Online Inventory Whos doing what where?
• Education
• Health
• State Local Government
• Community-Based Organizations
• Faith-Based Organizations
• Sports Recreation Groups
• Private Business
• Final reports from 12 Blue You Foundation
  grants
• Key informant interviews and focus groups with
  100 individuals
• Participation data from funders, curriculum
  vendors, state agencies and universities

4
Online Inventory Respondents
5
Responding Schools By Level
Primary Middle High School District Other
6
What Seems To Work?

• Set high expectations
• Expect accountability
• Schedule outside the box
• Train teachers, especially if hands-on tools are
  provided and commitments requested
• Involve parents, health providers community

7
What Seems To Work?

• Academic Time
• Re-tooling physical education
• PE teacher as activity director
• Experiential learning combined with integration
  across frameworks
• Non-Academic Time
• Organized activities of short duration, short
  time
• Let students prioritize extracurricular
  activities
• Rotate activities

8
What Seems To Work?

• Motivation Sustainability
• Focus on whole child
• Focus on positive be intentional reinforce
• Make wellness a community effort
• Instill a philosophy, not projects programs
• Assess, assess, assess
• Communicate celebrate progress!

9
Evidence of Impact

• School Administrators
• Improved BMI
• More students eating cafeteria prepared meals
• Student acceptance of fruits vegetables
• Less food waste
• Students drink more water
• Reduced absences
• Fewer discipline incidents
• Increased parent support
• Involvement of physicians and community

10
Report Evidence of Impact
Low response
11
Health Respondents
12
Primary Care Changes
13
Implementation Funding

• Many sources
• Grants generally following implementation
• Free training
• Mini-Grants
• Parent community in-kind contributions
• School revenue (e.g., curricula on approved
  textbook list, IT budget)
• Local fundraisers

14
Schools Where Blue You Grants Are Funding
Activities
15
Extension Nutrition Education
In Schools with gt50 Free Reduced Lunch
16
Tracking Measurement

• Most funded projects track something
• Changes in BMI
• Knowledge acquisition
• Intent to change behavior
• Self-reported behavior change
• Teacher surveys
• Parent surveys
• Changes in fitness levels
• Changes in percent body fat
• Increased participation
• Little analysis of available data

17
Obstacles To Analysis

• Many obstacles
• Paper files housed in teachers file cabinets and
  hard drives across the state
• Data compatibility
• Data entry time cost
• Labor availability
• Skills to interpret paper files for data entry
• Hardware/software for data storage retrieval
• Random IDs to protect confidentiality
• Fear data will be misused/misinterpreted
• Turf

18
Observations

• Many projects, a few coordinated programs
• Most fully (or largely) grant-funded
• Initiated by passionate champions
• Implementation often an individual decision
• Approaches differ from classroom to classroom,
  school to school
• Evidence-based curricula assume continuity and
  consistency

19
Lessons Learned

• Do what you can, with what you have, where you
  are
• Support people with vision, ideas energy
• Use all available resources
• Integrate across frameworks
• Involve the community
• More is better

20
Primary Challenges

• Champions tend to be near retirement Nurture a
  new generation of champions
• Teachers integrating curriculum across frameworks
  tend to be younger teachers support them
• Create cost effective systems
• Provide predictable sustainable funding
• Consistent, measurable evidence of progress
• Expand understanding of what is working in
  Arkansas

21
Creatively Tap More Community Resources
22
Faith Communities With gt 1000 Members
Membership 1000 - 2499 2500
5000 gt 5000
23
All Kinds of Trails
24
City Multipurpose Gyms
25
Public Swimming Pools
26
Dance, Martial Arts Gymnastics
Martial Arts Gymnastics Dance
27
More To Come

• Final Report in August 2008
• www.changingchildobesity.org
• www.aradvocates.org/
• www.achi.net
• Questions
• Sandra Miller, ComMetrics, Inc
• Arkansas Advocates for Children Families
• Childhood Obesity Project
• Sandra.miller_at_conwaycorp.net
• eburak_at_aradvocates.org