About
Assisting adolescents to increase their moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and healthy eating is an essential component for addressing the overweight and obesity epidemic. Research indicates that adequate physical activity and nutrition are important for achieving or maintaining a healthy body weight. Physical activity also improves cardiovascular fitness, builds lean muscle, reduces body fat, and promotes strong bone and joint development.
Findings from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey results for Michigan high school students indicate an urgent need to intervene before high school to instill healthy eating and physical activity habits. To increase physical activity, boys and girls need safe and convenient places where they can be active after school with enjoyable opportunities to participate and acquire skills in sports, dance, or other forms of exercise. They also need to have the knowledge and skills to eat healthy. Lastly, they need support to keep them motivated to continue any positive behavioral change.
Dr. Lorraine Robbins served as the principal investigator for the “Girls on the Move Intervention,” a five-year randomized trial. The purpose was to evaluate the efficacy of a 17-week comprehensive, theory-based intervention in increasing minutes of MVPA and improving cardiovascular fitness, body mass index, and percent body fat in fifth through eighth-grade girls. Twenty-four urban schools were involved over three years (2012–2015). The intervention involved three components: 1) two face-to-face, motivational, individually tailored counseling sessions, conducted by a health professional, to personally encourage each girl to attain adequate physical activity; 2) an interactive, Internet-based session where each girl received individually-tailored motivational feedback messages based on her responses to a computerized survey delivered via iPad; and 3) a 90-minute physical activity club offered after school three days per week followed by bus transportation home.
Dr. Robbins and her team plan to continue their important work by expanding the intervention to focus on both nutrition and physical activity, and include boys, as well as girls, along with their parents/ guardians. Their ultimate objective is to design a comprehensive, yet feasible, intervention that can be implemented in schools and translated to other settings to combat the escalating overweight and obesity problem noted among adolescents in the US. to achieve this objective, she was recently awarded an R61/R33 grant funded by NIH/ NHLBI.