Wellness Champions for Change

Summary

The Wellness Champions for Change (WCC) study aims to reduce pediatric obesity among students who attend schools in Maryland by training teacher and student-led wellness teams to increase opportunities for physical activity and healthy eating at school.

The study uses a cluster randomized design to allocate 6 schools (3 elementary, 3 middle) in 5 school systems to one of 3 arms: "A" (teacher and student training), "B" (teacher training only), and "C") (delayed teacher training/control). Approximately 36 3rd/6th graders and their caregivers ("evaluation cohort"), 15 4th/7th graders ("student leaders"), and 20 teachers from each school will be recruited in the spring before the intervention. All schools will identify a teacher "Wellness Champion" who will coordinate intervention activities. In "A" and "B" schools, wellness champions will attend a training to learn how to build a wellness team and create more opportunities for students to make healthy choices. In "A" schools, student leaders ("Student Wellness Champions") will meet weekly during lunch with a health educator to receive training as peer leaders and help the Wellness Champion with wellness initiatives. Student leaders in "B" and "C" schools will receive a monthly general Adolescent Health Curriculum. To assess the impact of the teacher and student-led interventions, the evaluation cohort will be followed for 2.5 years, with measures including: anthropometry (height/weight), 7-day accelerometry (physical activity), and validated questionnaires to assess healthy eating. Student leaders will be followed for 1.5 years to assess the impact of their participation, with measures including: anthropometry, 7-day accelerometry, validated questionnaires to assess healthy eating, and validated questionnaires and focus groups to assess leadership/advocacy skills. Teachers will complete validated questionnaires to investigate their perceptions of the school environment, classroom practices, and role modeling skills. Prior to data collection and analysis, participants will be assigned an identification number, and all documents linking participant information to identification numbers will be locked/ password-protected.

Conditions

• Obesity, Childhood

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Student Wellness Champions

Student Wellness Champions participate in a training to, develop a rapport, and build trust with the wellness specialist. SWCs will meet once/week during lunch. The SWC's will receive a health education/ health literacy curriculum in order to be well-versed on the importance of being active and eating healthy foods and how to communicate health information to key stakeholders to enact policy change and to fellow students to enact behavior change. These students will work with the Wellness Specialist and Wellness Champion to implement wellness policies and practices. Target policies/practices will be presented as a menu of options. The mechanisms used to enact change are based in the tenets of health literacy anchored in nutrition and PA promotion. Components of the curriculum include raising awareness of school system's local wellness policies and improving student skills surrounding the five standards of health literacy, using examples/activities linked to the local wellness policy.

BEHAVIORAL

Teacher Wellness Champions

Schools will be asked to identify a Wellness Champion (WC), someone at the school who is passionate about creating a healthy school environment. All WC's will be asked to attend a Wellness Champions for Change (WCC) training, led by a Wellness Specialist (health educator part of our study team). The WC's will learn about the skills necessary to make health promoting changes to the School Environment. Following the WCC training, the Wellness Champion will receive technical assistance from the Wellness Specialist. The Wellness Specialist will work with the Wellness Champion and the school's Wellness Team to conduct a needs assessment, and develop and implement a school action plan. The Wellness Specialist will provide support and resources to the Wellness Champion and the school to help them work towards their goals. All Wellness Champions in a given school system will meet monthly, as a group, with their Wellness Specialist to discuss progress, pitfalls, and successes.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

  collaborator FED

• University of Maryland, College Park

  collaborator OTHER

• Boise State University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Southern California

  collaborator OTHER

• Cornell University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Maryland, Baltimore

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Erin R Hager, PhD · University of Maryland, Baltimore

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

7 Years

Max Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-05-26

Primary Completion

2021-12-31

Completion

2021-12-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations