Objective:
To describe an innovative school-based intervention to promote healthy lifestyles. To evaluate its effects on children’s food habits and to highlight the key components which contribute ...most to the beneficial effects obtained from children’s, teachers’ and parents’ perspectives.
Design:
An educational tool to improve personal awareness, promote healthy food choices and increase children’s levels of physical activity was developed and evaluated. The tool used a community-based approach and included family members, schools, university, families, sports societies, farms, mass media and municipalities.
Setting:
A total of 11 primary school classes in five schools in Spoleto, Umbria.
Methods:
The tool dealt with healthy food choices, lifestyle and physical activities and is structured in four phases (4 months). The Kidmed test (a validated index based on principles sustaining Mediterranean dietary patterns as well as those that undermine them) and open-ended questionnaires (to highlight the key components which contributed most to the beneficial effects) were used to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. Kidmed scores were evaluated both before and after intervention (T0–T1) and the written answers collected (from teachers, parents and children) were subjected to content analysis using a form of grounded theory.
Results:
Data point to a significant before/after increase on Kidmed scores (t = −3.88; p = .000), revealing an increase in children’s adherence to the Mediterranean Diet, healthy habit changes, greater parental awareness of their educational responsibilities regarding food choices as well as physical activity, and a new school-family alliance as a result of the educational intervention.
Conclusion:
Project findings reveal positive effects on children’s food habits and highlight key components necessary to enhance the effectiveness of a school-based educational intervention.
Abstract Objective To introduce a narrative-autobiographical approach in the care and education of adolescents with type-1 diabetes and observe the effects of this novel approach on adolescents’ ...self-awareness, concern for self-care, and well-being. Methods Ninety-four adolescents with type-1 diabetes attending one 9-day summer camp in 2004, 2005, or 2006 participated in structured daily self-writing proposals on diabetes, integrated with daily interactive self-management education. After some months, we sent participants interview-like questionnaires, and two independent researchers performed a qualitative analysis of the 50 answers that were mailed back. Results Writing about the discovery of diabetes was, for many, a stressful experience, but with a strong liberating effect. One relevant point was change , which occurred: (a) in the perception of self; (b) in the relationship with others; (c) in the relationship with the disease. Conclusions The integration of autobiography in diabetes camps, by adding the value of sharing individual stories to the liberating power of self-writing, can allow the adolescents to overcome their feelings of diversity, and can initiate several changes reflecting increased self-efficacy, maturity, acceptance of the disease and responsibility in self-management. Practice implications Self-writing is feasible and well accepted, and provides healthcare professionals a proper way to patient-centered care.
It is clinically relevant to understand whether it is safe to recommend to trained overweight/obese people long-distance treks and whether these experiences could have a negative psychological impact ...or become even dangerous exposing the trekkers to the risk of clinically silent myocardial damage. To answer these questions we have performed a quantitative/qualitative study comparing the changes in mood profiles, personal views, body composition, and plasma troponin levels of 40 overweight/obese subjects with those of 36 healthy normal weight subjects after the participation in a trek of 388 km from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian seas trek: the “Step by step…Italy’s coast to coast”. The results of this study demonstrate that long-distance treks are a safe activity for trained overweight/obese people which should be recommended because they improve mood, health status, and the relationship of participants with themselves and with the regular practice of exercise with effects similar to those obtained by healthy normal weight subjects.
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