Setting: School (Learn)

Kids Cook!®

Kids Cook!® is a direct education program designed to encourage children and families to adopt healthier behaviors through hands-on preparation of a variety of nutrient-rich foods paired with daily physical activity. Program activities use an integrated curriculum format that provides opportunities for interdisciplinary learning. Hands-on methods increase acceptance of a variety of foods while modeling healthy food choices.  Additional benefits include improving nutrition, strengthens family ties through shared food preparation and the enjoyment of sitting down to eat together.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education

CookShop

CookShop is a core nutrition education program of Food Bank For New York City, providing low-income children and adults with the knowledge and tools to adopt and enjoy a healthy diet and active lifestyle on a limited budget.  With hands-on workshops reaching over 50,000 New Yorkers across all five boroughs, CookShop teaches nutrition and physical activity information, as well as cooking skills, fostering enthusiasm for fresh, affordable fruits, vegetables and other whole foods.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE change

Food Hero

Food Hero is a multi-channel social marketing campaign designed to change family and community behaviors.  Food Hero includes an extensive evaluation process. The program is designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among low-income Oregonians, and components of the campaign have been used widely in other states and countries.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change, Social Marketing

EatFresh

EatFresh.org is mobile-friendly website that was created for the SNAP-Ed population and the organizations that serve them. It provides practical resources and encouragement for individuals with varying levels of digital literacy, internet access, health awareness and culinary skills. EatFresh.org is a stand-alone indirect education resource, an extender for direct education interventions, and a useful tool for a variety of PSE strategies. Partners throughout California use EatFresh.org as a tool to direct their participants to healthy recipes during nutrition workshops, to look up preparation and storage tips for food received at food banks, and to apply for SNAP/Calfresh.  They promote the website by distributing recipe cards at health fairs and other indirect events, and refer clients to the EatFresh.org Mini Course as a flexible direct education resource. The EatFresh.org Mini Course is a free online direct education course that features 15 SNAP-Ed self-paced topics that can be completed in any order.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Eat Together, Eat Better (ETEB)

The Eat Together, Eat Better (ETEB) is a direct education and social marketing campaign designed to promote family meals using three main themes: Celebrate Together, Cook Together, and Talk Together. ETEB resources support nutrition, parent, and youth educators in teaching the importance of family meals in “setting roots for a lifetime.” Participants discuss the benefits of family meals, discover new ways to enjoy more family meals and increase their motivation to incorporate family meals into their routine.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing

Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH)

The Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) is a PSE change and direct education intervention aiming to prevent childhood obesity in school-age children. The two main behavioral targets are helping children identify and choose healthy foods and increasing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). CATCH’s training and curriculum materials provide the information and resources teachers need to implement strategies to improve child health.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Champions for Change

Champions for Change is a social marketing campaign designed promote fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity, and food security. The goal of Champions for Change is prevent obesity and other chronic diseases. This campaign is a recreation of the former California 5 a Day Campaign, and now reflects the new federal guidelines for health.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance

Intervention Type: Social Marketing

Healthy Kindergarten Initiative

The Healthy Kindergarten Initiative (KI) is a direct education and PSE Change intervention that includes an integrated, holistic approach to educating children and their caregivers about making healthy food choices and being physically active. Education is coupled with access; families are connected to local, healthy foods through innovative ways and community partnerships. Lessons integrating nutrition and healthy habits were developed to fit Pennsylvania educational standards; however, they can be adapted to meet the educational standards for other states. Learning how food grows and who grows it in combination with frequent food tastings and hands-on gardening may help increase fruit and vegetable consumption among young children.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) Farmers’ Market Salad Bar Program

The Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) Farmers’ Market Salad Bar Program is a direct education and PSE change intervention designed to promote healthy eating in children by increasing the availability of fruits and vegetables in school lunches and providing nutrition education to increase knowledge of and improve attitudes toward eating a variety of locally grown produce. The RUSD approach is revenue neutral for the district’s nutrition services and income-generating for local, small farmers. Its primary component is the Farmers’ Market Salad Bar, a daily salad bar stocked with produce provided by local farmers. The percentage of salad bar offerings that are locally grown ranges from 50-100%, depending on the time of year. The program offers cooking carts, chef and farmer visits to the classroom, Harvest of the Month teacher training and activities, school gardens, and field trips to farms and farmers markets.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Out of School Nutrition and Physical Activity (OSNAP)

The Out of School Nutrition and Physical Activity (OSNAP) Initiative is a PSE change intervention designed to increase healthy nutrition and physical activity and reduce screen time for children, including the frequency with which water is served during snack at afterschool programs. By promoting water, the OSNAP Initiative decreases the caloric impact of beverages served in afterschool programs. OSNAP, through its interactive website, www.osnap.org, provides afterschool program staff and organizational leaders with resources to improve their program practices and policies related to healthy foods, drinks, and physical activity.  One component of the OSNAP initiative focuses on providing access to free drinking water at snack time for children in afterschool programs.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type:  PSE Change

Youth Participatory Action Research Projects (YPAR)

Youth Participatory Action Research Projects (YPAR) engage middle and high school youth (ages 12-18) in projects that address and promote nutrition and physical activity issues in their community. YPAR aims to empower youth and achieve environmental changes related to health and nutrition. An adult ally works with the youth to help mentor, support, and facilitate the youth team. Through YPAR, youth engage in leadership, critical thinking, problem solving, strategizing skills, and service learning to address their target issue related to nutrition and physical activity.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Eating Smart • Being Active

Eating Smart • Being Active is a direct education healthy eating, active living intervention designed for paraprofessional nutrition educators to use when teaching low-income families to learn healthy lifestyle choices. The curriculum consists of nine core lessons, designed to be taught in order. The teaching techniques in the lesson plans of Eating Smart • Being Active are based on adult learning principles, dialogue-based learning and learner-centered education.

Target Behavior: Breastfeeding, Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type:  Direct Education

Eat Well & Keep Moving

Eat Well & Keep Moving is a direct education and PSE change intervention designed to equip children with the knowledge, skills, and supportive environment they need in order to lead healthier lives by choosing nutritious diets and being physically active. Designed for fourth- and fifth-grade students, its six interlinked components—classroom education, physical education, school-wide promotional campaigns, food services, staff wellness, and parent and community involvement—work together to create a supportive environment that promotes the learning of lifelong good habits, helps academic, physical education, and health education teachers guide upper elementary school students to make healthier choices while building skills.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Bienestar Health Program

The Bienestar Health Program is a direct education, culturally tailored school-based diabetes mellitus prevention program for low-income Mexican-American children. There are four components to Bienestar: 1) health and physical education classes, 2) an after-school health club, 3) family activities, and 4) a food service component. These components cohesively address the individual, relevant social groups, culture, and health promotion environment that support behaviors consistent with diabetes mellitus prevention. The Bienestar Health Program is delivered over 7 months during the school year.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Cooking Matters

Cooking Matters is a direct education program that offers courses to help families and caregivers shop and eat healthier. As part of the No Kid Hungry campaign to end childhood hunger in America, Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters teaches participants to shop smarter, use nutrition information to make healthier choices and cook delicious, affordable meals. Cooking Matters provides professional-level curricula and instructional materials, training, evaluation and national leadership support, while local program partners provide hands-on, grassroots-level resources, program customizations and relationships that are best addressed on the local level. Cooking Matters has empowered families with the skills to stretch their food budgets while cooking healthy meals.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance

Intervention Type: Direct Education

TAKE10

TAKE10 is a direct education intervention that combines academic instruction with 10 minute physical activity breaks. In a fun and creative way, TAKE10 promotes physical activity, healthy eating, and learning. Grade-specific learning objectives in areas such as math, reading, language arts, science, social studies, and nutrition and health are incorporated into the various physical activities. The program is designed to fit within the existing school system.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Shaping Healthy Choices Program (SHCP)

The Shaping Healthy Choices Program (SHCP) is a direct education and PSE change intervention designed to improve children’s health through a school-based, multicomponent approach. The program consists of 4 components: 1) Nutrition Education and Promotion, 2) Family and community partnerships, 3) Foods available on the school campus, and 4) School wellness policy. Program activities include nutrition education, cooking demonstrations, family newsletters, instructional school garden, salad bar, regional produce, school-site wellness committees, and community health fairs. Activities and programs were designed to operate on multiple levels of the Social Ecological Model (SEM) framework, integrated principles from Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), and a program evaluation was conducted. The goal of the program is to improve child diet and physical activity behaviors to prevent obesity.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Rethink Your Drink

The Rethink Your Drink Campaign is an evidence-based educational campaign designed to inform users about the relationship between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and increases in rates of overweight and obesity. The program provides nutrition education and recommendations for improving overall health, but specifically emphasizes reducing intake of soda, energy drinks, and sports drinks.  Social marketing as well as direct education materials including curricula and lesson plans, posters, handouts, fact sheets, and recipe cards can be implemented in school and community-based settings. The program aims to educate low-income children and adults about healthy drink options, specifically promoting the consumption of water.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing

Sports Play Active Recreation for Kids (SPARK)

Sports Play Active Recreation for Kids (SPARK) has numerous evidence-based programs designed to improve health that target areas such as physical education, after school, early childhood and coordinated school health. SPARK aims to develop healthy lifestyles, movement knowledge, motor skills, and social and personal skills. SPARK programs include a package of highly active curriculum, training for teachers, extensive follow-up support and content-matched equipment that help to foster environmental and behavioral changes. SPARK curriculum is aligned with numerous state and national standards.

Target Behavior: Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing, PSE Change

School Nutrition Policy Initiative (SNPI)

The School Nutrition Policy Initiative (SNPI) was a policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) change intervention designed to improve prevalence of childhood obesity in school age children in Philadelphia.  Components of the SNPI included 1) school self-assessment, 2) nutrition education, 3) nutrition policy, 4) social marketing, and 5) parent outreach. The goals of SNPI were to change the school food environment to promote healthy eating and increase physical activity and to provide teachers with training and tools to implement classroom-based nutrition education. The primary policy initiatives implemented were 1) replacing all sugar-sweetened beverages in school vending machines and cafeterias with water, low-fat milk, and 100% milk, 2) creating a snack policy that restricts candy sales in schools and places guidelines on the snacks served and sold, and 3) providing 10 hours of nutrition education training for teachers to support the integration of 50 hours of interdisciplinary nutrition education per year per classroom

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change, Social Marketing

Salad Bars to Schools (SB2S)

The national Salad Bars to Schools (SB2S) initiative is a PSE change intervention designed to provide salad bars to U.S. schools so that every child—from elementary school, to middle school, to high school—has daily access to fresh fruits and vegetables. When offered healthy food choices, children respond by trying new items, incorporating greater variety into their diets, and increasing their daily intake of fruits and vegetables. Through these early, positive experiences, students are better prepared for a lifetime of healthy eating. SB2S was founded by the Chef Ann Foundation, National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance, United Fresh Start Foundation, and Whole Foods Market in support of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Initiative.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance

Intervention Type: PSE Change

Lifestyle Education for Activity Program (LEAP)

The Lifestyle Education for Activity Project (LEAP) is a whole school intervention designed to increase physical activity in girls and give them the skills to become and remain physically active. LEAP is designed to support physical activity in high school girls and focuses on changing both instructional practices and the environment. Using a coordinated school health program approach, a variety of areas are addressed including, physical education classes, the school environment, health education, school health services, faculty and staff wellness, and the community and family environment. LEAP looks different in different schools, as it is a process that helps schools to develop a program that is tailored to their needs and goals.

Target Behavior: Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Pick a better snack™

The Pick a better snackTM is a direct education and social marketing program that brings nutrition educators into kindergarten through third-grade classrooms once per month. Each month, educators share a nutrition lesson, introduce one new fruit or vegetable, and allow students to try it. Educators also lead the students in a classroom physical activity break. Family newsletters and health-themed BINGO cards are sent home to engage parents. If interested, teachers can also deliver five complementary Pick a better snackTM health lessons to their students throughout the year. The Pick a better snackTM marketing campaign targets children and their parents and caregivers. A sister campaign – Play Your Way. One Hour a Day. – is also used with the program to promote physical activity.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing

Smarter Lunchrooms Movement (SML)

The Smarter Lunchrooms Movement is a research-tested intervention designed to improve child eating behavior by providing evidence-based tools and strategies to school lunchrooms. The Smarter Lunchrooms Movement translates research from the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs (B.E.N. Center) to schools across the country. Smarter Lunchrooms ‘nudge’ students to select and consume healthy foods. Smarter Lunchroom strategies are low-cost/no-cost solutions that preserve choice, decrease waste, increase participation, and maintain or increase revenue. The program has a guide of best practices for implementing behavioral economic principles in school lunchrooms to increase the number of students who select fruit, the target entrée, vegetables, reimbursable meals, and milk.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing, PSE Change

PE-Nut™

PE-Nut™ is a direct education and PSE change intervention that uses a whole-school approach to motivate students, parents, and educators to be physically active and eat healthier. Physical educators, classroom teachers and school administrators work together to improve nutrition and physical activity in K–5 school settings. The program consists of several components: quality physical education for students, nutrition education in the classrooms, take-home “healthy book bags”; daily school announcements; school and family newsletters; and parent engagement events. The overall goal of PE-Nut™ is to improve the school nutrition environment and affect healthy behavior change, including:

Individual Behavior Changes:

  • Increase participation in a physically active lifestyle.
  • Increase consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fat-free or low-fat milk or dairy products.
  • Balance caloric intake from food and beverages with calories expended (upper grades).
  • Try new foods.
  • Choose healthy snacks.
  • Wash hands before eating.

Classroom and School Environment:

  • Healthy Classroom Parties
  • Non-food rewards
  • School staff and Student role modeling
  • Healthy classroom and school wide messaging

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity and Nutrition (We Can!)

Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity and Nutrition (We Can!) is a national science-based education program designed for parents, caregivers, and communities to help children ages 8 to 13 years old maintain a healthy weight. We Can! focuses on the following behaviors:

  • Improved food choices
  • Increased physical activity
  • Reduced screen time

We Can! offers tips, fun activities, and resources to help parents and caregivers encourage these healthy behaviors in their family. It also offers organizations and health professionals with resources to implement science-based educational programming and activities for parents, youth and families in their community.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing

Mind, Exercise, Nutrition…Do It! (MEND)

Mind, Exercise, Nutrition…Do It! (MEND) is a family-based direct education intervention designed to manage overweight and obesity in 7–13-year-olds and their families by improving health, fitness and self-esteem. The MEND program combines active living (physical activity), healthy eating, and behavior change to facilitate safe, effective weight management and lasting changes in lifestyle. The program is attended by the child and at least one parent or primary caregiver, and runs for 10 weeks, typically for two hours twice a week. MEND helps families in the following areas:

  • Mind – improving children’s self-esteem and supporting families to change their behaviors around eating and activity
  • Exercise – engaging in regular physical activity that is fun
  • Nutrition – learning about good nutrition and healthy eating
  • Do it! – taking action to make healthy lifestyle changes

Healthy Weight Partnership and MEND Foundation provide third parties with the training, resources, support and technical assistance required to deliver MEND programs effectively.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Media-Smart Youth

Media-Smart Youth is an interactive direct education intervention designed to help youth ages 11 to 13 build skills in media analysis and media production and to understand how the media can influence their health, especially in regard to nutrition and physical activity. The goals of the program are to empower youth to:

  • Become aware of – and think critically about – media’s role in influencing their nutrition and physical activity choices.
  • Build skills that help them make informed decisions about being physically active and eating nutritious food in daily life.
  • Establish healthy habits that will last into adulthood.
  • Learn about media and create their own media products to educate their peers.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Harvest of the Month (HOTM)

Harvest of the Month (HOTM) is a social marketing intervention designed to raise awareness of the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables and being active every day in a variety of settings including schools, daycare, and afterschool programs; retail food stores and farmers markets; health clinics; food banks; and worksites. HOTM provides materials for students, families, and the community to engage in hands-on opportunities to explore, taste, and learn about the importance of eating fruits and vegetables and being active every day. Resources provide the opportunity for collaboration among many partners and stakeholders, including educators, school nutrition staff, school administrators, students, parents, farmers, retail outlets, worksites, SNAP offices, after-school programs, and more.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: PSE Change, Social Marketing

ReFresh

The ReFresh curriculum is a direct education intervention designed to encourage students to consume more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat or fat free dairy products and to be more physically active. Composed of a series of 8 nutrition education units, ReFresh is designed for implementation in fourth and fifth grade classrooms throughout the school year from October through May. Lessons align with Common Core courses such as math and language arts and offer opportunities for taste testing, discussion, and reflection. Throughout the ReFresh curriculum, the following behaviorally-focused messages are emphasized:

  • Make half your plates fruits and vegetables
  • Make at least half your grains whole grains
  • Increase physical activity
  • Maintain calorie balance

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Balanced Energy Physical Activity Toolkit (BEPA-Toolkit)

The Balanced Energy Physical Activity Toolkit (BEPA-Toolkit) is a direct education intervention with added PSE components designed to integrate PA and nutrition concepts through education and activity in K-6th grade school classrooms. Nutrition concepts are linked to PA concepts and active games through an approach that explains the concept of balanced energy as a combination of healthful eating and regular, varied PA. The BEPA-Toolkit provides educators with materials and activity ideas that can be used in and outside of the classroom and before, during, or after school to increase children’s physical activity time at school. The Toolkit has been adapted to align with a PSE approach, which includes teacher trainings, wellness policy supports, and resourcing schools or classrooms with BEPA-Toolkits.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Farm to School

Farm to school is a PSE change and direct education intervention designed to give students in pre- K to 12 access to healthy, local foods as well as education opportunities such as school gardens, cooking lessons and farm field trips. Farm to school empowers children and their families to make informed food choices while strengthening the local economy and contributing to vibrant communities. Farm to school implementation differs by location but always includes one or more of the following: Procurement: Local foods are purchased, promoted and served in school meals or as a snack or taste-test; Education: Students participate in education activities related to agriculture, food, health or nutrition; and School gardens: Students engage in hands-on learning through gardening. Other PSE supports for Farm to school can include mini-grant programs for building school gardens, linking farmers to school districts in online marketplaces, building farm to school coalitions, hosting state farm to school trainings and more.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Classroom Energizer Teacher Training Workshop

The Classroom Energizer Teacher Training Workshop is a PSE intervention designed to prepare classroom teachers to lead short bursts (10-minute breaks) of physical activity (PA) in their classroom, thus changing the environment in which children learn.  The training was adapted with permission from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The Classroom Energizer PA breaks are integrated with academic concepts to reinforce classroom work through movement in grades K-5 and increase the daily minutes of PA for students during the school day.

Target Behavior: Physical Activity

Intervention Type: PSE Change

Communities of Excellence in Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Prevention (CX3)

The Communities of Excellence in Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Prevention (CX3) is a powerful tool that captures and communicates neighborhood-level data to promote healthier communities. It is designed to provide tools for collecting and measuring food quality, availability, and affordability in low-income communities. Armed with this data, health and nutrition advocates around the state are engaging and inspiring community members and partners to pursue healthy food.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: PSE Change

School Physical Activity & Nutrition-Environment Tool (SPAN-ET)

The School Physical Activity and Nutrition Environment Tool (SPAN-ET) is a PSE Change tool used by school sector stakeholders to assess elementary school resources and readiness to improve nutrition and physical activity (PA) environments, suggest appropriate improvement strategies, score and measure outcomes resulting from environmentally-based treatments. The assessment tool includes 27 Area of Interest items in two main component categories, PA and nutrition, and considers the policy, situational, and physical environment within each component.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: PSE Change

Pick it! Try it! Like it! (PTL)

Pick it! Try it! Like it! (PTL) is a direct education and social marketing intervention which aims to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables by providing consumer information on selecting and preparing fresh produce. PTL materials are filled with tips for selecting, exploring, and cooking a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Factual information complements simple, healthy, and tested recipes. Colorful fact sheets, recipe cards, and educational videos provide educators and families with fun, engaging tools to enhance any dietary curriculum in a variety of settings.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing 

Healthy Behaviors Initiative (HBI)

The Healthy Behaviors Initiative (HBI) is an after school (AS) program designed to enable and recognize on-site staff to offer practical, user-friendly and effective nutrition, physical activity (PA), and food security intervention activities. HBI is a multi-level effort for the children, site staff, sponsoring organizations, and the multi-county Superintendent regions to complement in-school and community resources. A key to success in the infrastructure is the opportunity for AS programs to become certified by the Center for Collaborative Solutions as a HBI Learning Center. Learning Centers provide modeling, peer support, mentoring, and exchange among AS sites in their geographic areas.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating; Physical Activity

Intervention Type: PSE Change

Michigan Harvest of the Month (MiHOTM)

Michigan Harvest of the Month™ (HOTM) is a multi-level intervention designed to increase consumption of and access to fruits and vegetables; link child-focused nutrition education in schools with adult-focused supports in community-based food access settings; increase consumption of locally grown produce by connecting growers to their communities in school, child care, worksite, retail, farmers market, health care, and emergency food settings. HOTM features ready-to-go supplemental nutrition education materials that can easily be integrated into the core curriculum and are based on the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing, PSE Change

Power Play! Campaign, School Idea & Resource Kit (SIRK)

The Power Play! Campaign, School Idea & Resource Kit (SIRK) is a community-based, social marketing initiative administered by local health departments and implemented in schools. The Power Play! Campaign is designed to improve children’s short-term health and also reduce their long-term risk of chronic diseases—especially cancer, heart disease, and obesity—by increasing fruit and vegetable intake and physical activity (PA) among ethnically diverse, low-income children. The Power Play! Campaign implements activities and messaging in environments where children live, learn, and play. It includes both school and afterschool models that provide low-resource sites with free nutrition education lessons and PA energizers, cafeteria-based promotions, and youth engagement projects.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change, Social Marketing

Health EmPowers You!

Health EmPowers You! is a direct education and PSE change intervention designed to increase physical activity (PA) in elementary schools using the Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program Model, promoted by CDC, to improve whole school PA programming, policies, systems, and environments. Health EmPowers You! has the following five objectives:(1) improve aerobic capacity health-related fitness levels, (2) maintain or decrease BMI levels, (3) increase daily opportunities for PA before and/or during school, (4) increase moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) time during PE, and (5) improve the school environment for PA.

Target Behavior: Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Text2BHealthy

Text2BHealthy is a social marketing and direct education text message-based intervention designed to stimulate positive behavior change in parents with respect to grocery shopping habits, fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity. Text2BHealthy engages low-income parents of elementary school children by sending text messages which link parents to their school and community.  Parents receive about 2 text messages per week connecting parents with nutrition education in the classroom, identifying community events related to nutrition and physical activity that are free or low-cost, highlighting grocery store specials/recipes and physical activity ideas to try at home with their family.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change, Social Marketing

Cooking with Kids for a Healthy Future (CWK)

Cooking with Kids for a Healthy Future (CWK) is a school-based food nutrition education curriculum program designed to educate and empower children and families to make healthy food choices through hands-on learning with fresh, affordable foods from diverse cultural traditions.  The program uses 3 nutrition education and obesity prevention approaches: direct education, multi-level interventions at multiple complementary organizational and institutional levels, and community and public health approaches to improve nutrition. CWK includes integrated curriculum guides (bilingual and grade-specific) with cooking lessons, school lunch recipes, how-to-videos, recipes, and other resources. CWK provides nutrition education in SNAP-Ed qualifying public schools and supports community and public health approaches, including the development of teaching kitchens in schools and the support of Farm to School and Child Nutrition Program staff training.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing, PSE Change