Sample selection
The participants will be aged between 12 and 15 years. In line with the statistics which indicate the prevalence of child hood obesity is more pronounced among Hispanic and African American children, the study population will be made up of: 38% Hispanics, 29% African Americans, 15% Caucasians, 14% biracial children and 4% multiracial children. This will help in addressing the issues relating to inequalities. All children within the ages of 12 and 15 in the participating schools will be eligible for participation upon the parents and the children giving consent to participate. 12 schools will be picked randomly to participate in the program while 10 not participating in the intervention strategy will also be used to offer comparison. At least, 567 children will be picked at random from each set of the schools. The parents will also be part of the study as they will help in following up the students after school and provide monthly information if the children adhered to the information given particularly with regard to exercise and eating habits.
Intervention delivery and evaluation
The researcher will first approach the relevant stakeholders-teachers, parents, health professionals, school administrators and healthcare providers and explain the outline of the program. In a stake holder forum a committee to review and refine the intervention program will be elected. The program will be implemented by facilitators and teachers and volunteer parents.
The participants will remain in school every day for two hours and play after rigorous training. the training will be done by program facilitators who will provide information on the need to exercise, healthy eating habits, adequate sleep and reduction of hours spent watching the television. In addition, the facilitators and the health professionals will develop fact sheets and pamphlets on the dangers of obesity, the mitigation steps and the importance of taking deliberate actions. The gym instructors will provide information and instructions on the appropriate weight loss exercises; including simple ones that can be done without the sophisticated gym equipments. The stakeholder appointed committee will meet on a monthly basis to review, monitor and evaluated the program. The stakeholders will meet on a quarterly basis to know the progress of the program.
The facilitators and teachers will also provide parents and guardians with all relevant information to help them follow-up on the children after school, during weekends and holidays. The ones in the control group will be allowed to go home but will be required to document their activities after school. The BMI of the participants in both the study group and the control will be collected before the start of the program and on a quarterly basis for a period of 5 years. The longitudinal data collected will be compared, between the study group and the control. The comparison of the BMI data between the groups and between the quarters will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the program.
