According to the National
Institutes of Health, more than twice as many children are
overweight now than three decades ago. For pre-teens and teenagers,
the issue of healthy weight is even more complicated. These
children are subjected to advertising, peer pressure, and
other outside forces that influence their concepts of body
image.
A new field trip program of the Hall of Health,
Some Body!, aims to educate 10- to 14-year-olds about several
aspects of body image. It describes the consequences of being
over- or under-weight, and it provides information about making
healthy food choices.
With funding from IMLS, the museum purchased
the Some Body! program from the Children’s Health Education
Center in Milwaukee, a division of the Children’s Hospital
of Milwaukee that offers programs with engaging models, hands-on
learning, and cutting-edge technology for dynamic group learning.
The Hall of Health modified the program to complement its
own nutrition exhibits and studied the program’s effectiveness.
The program has since become one of the on-going field trip
offerings of the museum.
Project Design and Goals
Staff at the Hall of Health hoped the off-the-shelf program
would be ready to implement when it arrived. The PowerPoint
presentation included video clips, discussions, and hands-on
activities for teachers and students. But the museum soon
realized that the two-hour auditorium presentation would need
to be shortened for their venue, so it could be used with
its existing and planned hands-on exhibits on nutrition.
When the museum’s new “Healthy Pizza
Kitchen” is complete, children will be able to pretend
to create their own healthy pizzas with ingredients from all
the major food groups and menus with the nutritional information
on all of the potential toppings.
The museum condensed the program to 45 minutes
so it could be combined with a 45-minute tour of its nutrition
exhibits to make an hour and a half field trip for classes.
The original objectives of the program centered
on the body image theme:
• To increase knowledge of body image in the target
age group
• To provide resources to teachers and youth to help
them achieve and maintain a positive body image
• To decrease the number of students who succumb to
pressure concerning unhealthy body image behaviors due to
outside influences, such as media, family, and peers
The dangers of anorexia and bulimia, the eating
disorders that can affect adolescents, were a part of the
original Some Body! program.
During the initial phase of the grant the presentation
was modified by the museum, materials were ordered, and all
of the museum’s employees—including work-study
students—were trained by an instructor sent from Milwaukee
on presenting the program. Plans were also made during this
time for conducting formative and summative evaluations.
Plan in Action
The Hall of Health began offering the field trip to schools
in the San Francisco Bay area in February 2004. Both teachers
and students were receptive to the main themes of the program
and found some of the hands-on activities very illuminating.
In one activity the presenter sets out various
drink bottles, including a soft drink, water, fruit juice,
and a sport drink. A student volunteer is selected to line
the bottles up from highest sugar content to lowest. The presenter
then takes out a set of containers with the actual amount
of sugar contained in each drink. Museum Director Lucy Day
said that participants are always amazed to see how much sugar
is in the most popular drinks.
Another activity prompts students to look critically
at advertisements. The presenter shows them several ads and
asks them to guess what kind of product the ad is selling.
An image of a thin, well-dressed woman, for example, may be
used in an advertisement for a hair product, a lotion, or
even a car. Students begin to realize that there are hidden
messages in the ads, messages that imply ideas like: “If
you buy this car, you will look like this woman.” Day
said, “When you start analyzing the messages in some
advertisements, you see they break down into absurdity.”
Soon after the museum began to offer the program,
the museum realized that the issue of obesity needed greater
attention. The large minority population the museum serves
has a higher incidence of obesity than other eating disorders.
Also, childhood obesity is a prevalent problem nationwide.
Day said that while the students generally are
aware of the importance of eating right and exercise, they
aren’t aware of the serious health consequences of failing
to do so. She said, “The problem of obesity in this
country is affecting not just adults but children, and it’s
not just a matter of being overweight in and of itself, but
it leads to a series of health consequences including heart
disease and a greater incidence of diabetes.”
Results
More than 2,000 students and 200 adult chaperones (including
teachers and parents) have attended the field trip since the
museum first offered it in February 2004.
The museum has conducted evaluations with student
and teacher questionnaires, interviews, and pre/post-field
trip surveys. Formative evaluation was conducted during the
first and second year of the program to gather information
to fine-tune the program. During this evaluation period, museum
staff not only realized the need for more emphasis on the
issue of obesity, they also learned that many fourth-grade
teachers were requesting the program. From the evaluation,
the museum learned that the teachers, across the board, thought
the program had great educational value and that students
understood the program messages.
The summative evaluation was conducted during
the final year of the grant. From it, the museum learned that
both students and teachers rated the program very positively.
On a scale of 1 to 10, students rated it an average of 8.9
and teachers rated it an average of 8.4. Interview questions
and a pre/post survey were used, indicating that there was
a small, but statistically significant increase in students’
understanding of the program’s key concepts.
Hoover Elementary School teacher Mark Louie
has taken two of his fifth-grade classes to the museum for
the Some Body! field trip. He believes that nutrition, physical
health, and mental health are strongly linked, and he puts
a large emphasis on physical fitness in his classes. He said
that his children really got the messages presented at the
field trip. Although his minority students face many challenges,
he has seen his students strive to make healthier choices.
The children who participated in the program, he said, especially
those who are overweight, did try to change the snacks they
ate at school and made greater efforts at physical activity.
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