WSU to tackle youth obesity
What will it take to slow the spread of childhood obesity in Spokane and beyond?
Only about three years, $1.3 million and the cooperation of up to 5,000 local middle-schoolers and their families – at least according to Washington State University researchers who’ve received a federal grant to tackle the problem.
WSU faculty members Kenn Daratha and Ruth Bindler learned recently that they are among the 15 percent of applicants whose projects were approved recently by a program of the United States Department of Agriculture.
They asked for $1.5 million, but the pair said they’ll happily pare the budget for the proposal that aims to change the diet and exercise habits of seventh- and eighth-graders individually, at home and in school – and then to measure whether and why the interventions worked.
“We expect this to contribute right away to solving this problem,” said Daratha, 44, who works in the Informatics program at WSU Spokane.
The problem, of course, is the ballooning obesity rate among young people. Rates of overweight children in the United States have tripled since 1980. Nearly a third of all U.S. children are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Reversing that trend requires a multifaceted approach that includes family, schools, the community and, most importantly, the kids themselves, said Bindler, 57, a nurse and a researcher with WSU’s Intercollegiate College of Nursing.
Organizers hope to expand already strong ties among the university, the WSU Extension Service and the Spokane School District to conduct the project, which is expected to start next fall and continue until 2010.
“It is huge,” said Doug Wordell, director of nutrition services for the school district. “We’re about to try to make a better community.”
Existing collaboration helped reviewers decide in favor of WSU, said Etta Saltos, national program leader for the USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service program.
Overall, the program offered about $10.7 million to researchers who could create practical projects to address childhood nutrition and obesity.
Plans are still tentative, but the local project could include features such as personal coaches who work with students to set individual health and fitness goals. School-based fitness centers may stay open in the evenings and on weekends to allow families to work out together, Wordell said.
About 5,000 students at six Spokane middle schools will be eligible for the project, although participation is not mandatory, Bindler said. Changes will be monitored in several ways, including through blood tests. About 200 students and their families will be sought for intensive intervention.
Funding for the grant is expected this spring. Organizers expect to hold focus group meetings to determine what families and kids think might help them change their health habits, Bindler said.
The challenge will be convincing volatile middle-schoolers and their families to attempt to change their health habits, but the researchers are hopeful it can be done.
“We’re bringing together the family, the teachers and the kids to say, ‘This is the problem. What can we do to solve the problem?’ ” Daratha said.