Love Your Body, Love Yourself: Development of a nutrition and physical activity curriculum for a school‐based obesity intervention in high‐risk girls ages 11–17 years.

Abstract

Overweight adolescents have a 70% chance of becoming overweight or obese adults. One of the consequences of overweight as perceived by the children themselves is social discrimination. This is associated with poor self‐esteem and depression. The Love Your Body, Love yourself nutrition and physical activity weight loss curriculum was designed for girls ages 11–17 years who were involved in a residential treatment center for mental health, substance abuse, trauma recovery, and other psychosocial issues. Within this residential program, 50% had a BMI classification of obese, 30% had high blood cholesterol levels, 20% had hypertension, and 40% had asthma. The residential population was 30% Caucasian, 64% African American and 2% Hispanic girls. The overall theme of the curriculum development was focused on the importance of different body parts as they relate to overall health, taking away from the attention on outward appearance. The lesson plans are divided into weekly modules, each module includes a specific body part and how nutrition and physical activity play a role with the overall health of their bodies. Nutrition and physical activity lesson content was also designed based on results from survey data that was collected from the girls regarding their nutrition and physical activity knowledge and level of interest. These modules are designed to be integrated into an 8 month school‐based wellness program.