Advancing School and Community Engagement Now for Disease Prevention (ASCEND)

Abstract

Purpose: To compare two intensity levels (standard vs. enhanced) of a nutrition and physical activity intervention vs. a control (usual programs) on nutrition knowledge, body mass index, fitness, academic performance, behavior, and medication use among elementary school students.

Design: Quasi-experimental with three arms.

Setting: Elementary schools, students' homes, and a supermarket.

Subjects: A total of 1487 third-grade students.

Intervention: The standard intervention (SI) provided daily physical activity in classrooms and a program on making healthful foods, using food labels. The enhanced intervention (EI) provided these plus additional components for students and their families.

Measures: Body mass index (zBMI), food label literacy, physical fitness, academic performance, behavior, and medication use for asthma or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Analysis: Multivariable generalized linear model and logistic regression to assess change in outcome measures.

Results: Both the SI and EI groups gained less weight than the control (p < .001), but zBMI did not differ between groups (p = 1.00). There were no apparent effects on physical fitness or academic performance. Both intervention groups improved significantly but similarly in food label literacy (p = .36). Asthma medication use was reduced significantly in the SI group, and nonsignificantly (p = .10) in the EI group. Use of ADHD medication remained unchanged (p = .34).

Conclusion: The standard intervention may improve food label literacy and reduce asthma medication use in elementary school children, but an enhanced version provides no further benefit.

Keywords: Asthma; Attention Deficit Disorder With Hyperactivity; Body Mass Index; Child; Exercise; Health focus: fitness/physical activity, nutrition; Humans; Manuscript format: research; Obesity; Outcome measure: cognitive, behavioral, biometric; Physical Fitness; Prevention Research; Research purpose: intervention testing/program evaluation; Setting: family, school, local community; Strategy: education, skill building/behavior change; Students; Study design: quasi-experimental; Target population age: youth; Target population circumstances: geographic location.