This week we would like to spotlight the Hip Hop Healthy Heart Program for Children™ (Hip Hop), a comprehensive wellness program bringing together physical education, music, and arts in grade K-6th.

The Program Basics

Hip Hop works through wellness education that flows from teacher, to student, to family and the community at large. It requires parents/guardian/mentors to be involved in training on a daily basis, not only helping to reinforce the lessons at home, but also by personally participating in the President’s Active Lifestyle Award Program (PALA). It has 8 multidiciplinary modules and inspires kids to participate by recognizing their achievements with:

• Award certificates for completion of each module
• Certificate of Completion for the entire program.

In order to receive their final program certificate, students and an adult partner are required to register for the PALA when they start Module 1.

Measuring Success

Jyl Steinback, co-creator of the program and Executive Director of Shape Up US mentioned two ways in which Hip Hop is evaluated:

• Educational Assessment: Students are required to complete a written test to assess their comprehension of the topic. Upon passing each module test, students will receive a module certificate of completion and will be eligible for additional awards and prizes.

• Health Assessment: To make sure that the positive lifestyle lessons taught in Hip Hop are truly making a difference, Shape Up US has partnered with HeartSmartKids to track each student’s health progress. Anthropometric data, lifestyle factors, and family history are assessed and tracked using this system.
  

Challenges

Steinbeck states that, “in some cases, students may not have a parent, guardian or partner/mentor available, or able to participate.” In such cases, she suggests that instructors help students partner with another role model so that they can participate in the program: older siblings; grandparents; recent retiree volunteer - Check www.AARP.org ; student mentor from a local high school as part of the high school’s community service curriculum.

Implementing a Similar Program in Your Community

Use existing infrastructure- The Hip Hop model relies on training educators, healthcare professionals and others who work with groups of children. This creates a program with controlled costs because it builds on existing infrastructure. In your community, try building upon existing infrastructures to implement your program. 

Engage parents and guardians- To help engage partners to get the maximum benefit of Hip Hop:

• Letters to send home to parents that provides parents with information about the curriculum prior to starting it
• Parent, guardian or partner/mentor contracts for each module

Reach out to encourage participation-

• Scheduling a group meeting to discuss the curriculum
• Send home personal invitations to the group meeting and ask parent/guardians to RSVP by a specific date.
• Telephone parents who do not respond and encourage them to participate
  

Don’t forget potential resources in your community- Hip Hop is designed to be taught many different types of teachers. Programs like this can be taught by:

• Public/Private School Teachers as part of their regular curriculum
• Home School Instructors
• PE Instructors
• Fitness Instructors at Health Clubs, After School Programs, YMCA, etc.
• Park and Recreation Instructors

Have you used existing infrastructure to implement a physical activity program? How?

As the Executive Director of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition I am profoundly aware of the importance of making physical activity and nutrition accessible and affordable for all Americans, especially children. This is a multifaceted problem, and I’ll address several dimensions of this issue in this discussion. 

Availability of facilities that provide healthy, affordable food in our communities is a necessity.  If we do not have facilities within our neighborhoods where we can obtain fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices, then kids are going to continue to buy the Twinkies.  We’ve got to incent our retail establishments to be able to come into communities. I think we’ve seen success where we’ve put forth the effort in this area.

The school environment has a strong influence on whether physical activity and nutrition are accessible to children. Kids spend a good part of their days, weeks, and years in school.  We’ve got to continue pushing for policy change as it relates to physical education and school meals.

In many cases we are going in the wrong direction. Physical education is being cut out of schools, and it is so very important.  Many states are passing policies mandating physical activity. This time could be recess, before or after school programs, or physical education.  The unintended consequence  we are hearing from school officials is “we are doing our 15 minutes of recess and then kids are walking between classes, so we are just going to cut PE because nobody said we have to do PE.”  Physical education is a curricular area.  It is an educational area that should be taught by a certified physical education teacher.   It is not recess.

When advocates like myself come in and say we need more physical education, what we are really saying is we need more quality PE.

We know it can be done.  Often we hear that test scores are the priority and we only have so many minutes in each school day, but we have examples of schools that have made it a priority where kids are getting 30 minutes of physical education every day and their test scores are increasing.  For more information regarding this, reference the Centers for Disease Control and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education report on academics and physical education. There is an increasing body of research that shows definitively that kids who are physically active perform better academically. It can decrease their delinquency and behavioral issues, as well as help them concentrate so they tend to perform better on tests.

Has your organization worked to improve access to the health of America’s children through physical activity and nutrition? How? To learn how you can get involved, visit www.presidentschallenge.org and become a President’s Challenge Advocate today.

Note:  The President’s Council’s name was recently changed by Executive Order from President Obama to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition (PCFSN) in recognition of the fact that good nutrition must go hand in hand with fitness and sports participation in order to achieve a healthy lifestyle.

Image courtesy of the President’s Challenge

Providing low cost, readily accessible tools that organizations and individuals can use to help children increase their levels of physical activity can be a challenge, but it’s one the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports’ (PCPFS) President’s Challenge program is ready to meet.  Thanks to one of the goals identified in First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative--to increase youth physical activity as measured through participation in the President’s Challenge Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA) , the Council hopes more physical activity practitioners, parents, caregivers, and teachers will know about the tools at their disposal. 

In addition to the PALA, the physical activity and fitness awards programs that make up the President’s Challenge offer a low or no cost and easy way to help children and adults stay on track with their physical activity and fitness.  While tracking physical activity isn’t for everyone, it can help some realize a goal, such as those outlined in the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, and help them work towards improved health.

As the Guidelines for children and adolescents state, young people should engage in a variety of activities that they enjoy.  There are over 100 different activities that count towards earning the PALA including skateboarding, soccer, baseball, rock climbing, canoeing, and the increasingly popular video-based physical activity or exer-games.    This variety exemplifies the breadth of physical activities, including sports and recreational activities, in which individuals of all ages and abilities can participate to maintain or improve their health. 

People need to start someplace and by doing the amount of activity required to earn the PALA, youth and adults are well on their way to realizing the health benefits of physical activity.  If you have the capacity to influence a child’s life, take a moment to consider challenging them to earn the PALA.  The program is for individuals ages 6 and older, therefore, adults (e.g., parents, grandparents, big brothers or sisters, coaches) have the opportunity to set an example for the children they influence by earning their own PALA, too. 

What kinds of tools are you using to increase levels of physical activity among the children you serve?  Do you believe that adults can serve as physical activity role-models for youth?  Have you had success using awards programs to encourage youth or adult physical activity?