The fit family program

The purpose of this study was to explore how families might respond to a home-centered, health-related family fitness program designed to improve lifestyle eating and exercise behaviors. Based on social learning principles and family systems theory, this two-month program involved six families (parents and children aged 9 to 18) recruited from 4-H Community Clubs in the Salem-Roanoke and New River Valley areas. The Salem-Roanoke area participants received the treatment, and the New River Valley participants served as the comparison group. Both groups were tested regarding fitness levels (flexibility, strength, endurance, height/weight), cardiovascular measures (blood pressure, resting heart rate, total blood cholesterol), and knowledge of diet/nutrition at the beginning and end of the two-month program. Participants were also required to maintain a weeks’ daily diet/activity logs in conjunction with each testing session.

In addition to the above measures, the treatment group received training in the use of diet and activity classification systems, asked to keep daily diet/activity logs using these systems, and work toward diet/activity goals. This group received educational materials by mail, weekly phone calls, and incentives for goals met during the second month. Both groups received feedback on scores and measures during the testing sessions as well as incentives for completing the final testing and logs.

Results indicate that the treatment group increased their activity levels by an average of 34% (measured by point system) and decreased their intake of high-fat foods by 44% on average (measured by numbers of high-fat foods eaten). Fit Family participants made improvements on average for all 10 of the other dependent measures including fitness/nutrition knowledge, health-related fitness, and cardiovascular measures. Furthermore, the improvements made by this group were on average greater than the comparison group's for every measure with the exception of activity points. Finally, changes occurred similarly for parents and children within families in 75% of the possible cases.