Awareness is Power: Promoting Healthy, Mindful Eating for Trenton Middle Schoolers through an After-School Partnership

Abstract

The U.S. is currently in the midst of an obesity epidemic, and the greatest hopes for progress lie in childhood obesity prevention efforts. Our understanding of the causes of obesity and the mechanisms that contribute to energy over-consumption provide numerous avenues for intervention. This study reports on a novel intervention targeting several of these avenues including nutrition knowledge, media literacy, mindless eating, and access and exposure to healthy foods. The intervention — a 5-session class that included hands-on activities, group discussions, question-and-answer, short videos, and guided mindful eating exercises — was delivered to a group of 5th-8th graders through a partnership with the Boys & Girls Club of Trenton. Evaluation of the program demonstrates that it improved food consumption monitoring on a distracted eating task and led to increased comprehension of nutrition facts labels, though other key outcomes were not affected. These results suggest that combining lessons on nutrition and mindful eating and partnering with local after school organizations to offer classes on healthy eating are both promising strategies for improving children’s dietary habits and potentially reducing their risk for obesity.