Abstract
One approach that has been successful at improving youth health outcomes is the Shaping Healthy Choices Program, which features garden- and cooking-demonstration-based nutrition education curricula. The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of implementing Shaping Healthy Choices Program curricula in 4-H using a teenagers as cross-age teachers approach. A teenagers as cross-age teachers model was employed to educate younger youth using the evidence-based curricula in 2 projects, each lasting 6 months over a 2-year period. Teenage teachers completed an initial 2-day training and reflection-on-action discussions following each educational session. Fidelity observations were collected to assess how well the curricula were delivered by teenage teachers. With a goal of 80%, overall fidelity was low (45%) and teenage teachers were able to deliver only the procedure component of the lessons with adequate average fidelity (84.6%). Poor participant attendance hindered presentation of additional data. Findings from this study suggest a need for more extensive and specific training for teenage teachers to implement the Shaping Healthy Choices Program.
Highlights
Childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity is an epidemic in the United States with prevalence continuously increasing over the last 35 years (Fryar et al, 2018)
One teenager dropped out of the project immediately following the initial training and another did not consent for data collection, leaving three teenage teachers included in data collection
The Shaping Healthy Choices Program (SHCP) is traditionally implemented as a school-based intervention, but a goal at the time of its development was for it to be implemented within 4-H
Summary
Childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity is an epidemic in the United States with prevalence continuously increasing over the last 35 years (Fryar et al, 2018). One possible explanation for the elevated prevalence of obesity is that youth typically have poor overall diet quality (Banfield et al, 2016; Thomson et al, 2019). This is further compounded by youth tending to not meet recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption (Banfield et al, 2016; Thomson et al, 2019). It has been suggested that integrated comprehensive nutrition programs are most effective for improving youth health (Hayes et al, 2018)
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