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USI Youth Fitness and Nutrition Program Emerges from
Connect with Southern Indiana

A project that emerged from USI’s Connect with Southern Indiana 2007 class has evolved into an after school program that could become a model in the effort to prevent childhood obesity.

Connect with Southern Indiana provides participants the opportunity to meet business and civic leaders and others from the region, identify areas for collaborative problem-solving, and develop critical thinking skills, culminating in group projects beneficial to the region. One such project produced by the 2007 class was the SMART Youth Fitness and Nutrition DVD led by Dr. Glenna Bower '95, assistant professor of physical education.

Bower wanted to focus her project on childhood obesity. “Childhood obesity is an epidemic,” she said. “Thirty-three percent of our children are obese, and that’s doubled since 1980. The primary contributors are decreased activity and increased high fat, high calorie, and non-nutrient dense food. It’s extremely important we start educating our younger children and youth today of how to be physically active and how to eat appropriately. If not, we’re going to continue to have the adult obesity epidemic.”

She was joined in the project by class members Vic Chamness '87, supervisor of Science, Health, and Physical Education for the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation, Debbie Grace '98, owner of Happy House Daycare Center, and Vicki Nelson, development director of the Lampion Center.

The four decided to tackle childhood obesity with an intervention program based on physical activity and nutrition, but had to choose a project that would be feasible to complete in the allotted time. “We decided we could do a DVD in a six-month period,” Bower said.

The SMART Youth Fitness and Nutrition DVD includes sample components of aerobic fitness, flexibility, muscular strength/endurance, and nutrition. Twenty-five USI students in a Principles and Application of Fitness Training course helped develop the fitness portion of the DVD with exercises using common household items instead of expensive fitness equipment. A Gatorade bottle becomes a pair of hand weights. Pantyhose are used instead of exercise tubing or bands. A pillow replaces an exercise mat.

The DVD project inspired the Smart Youth Fitness and Nutrition Program, a 12-week after school program for middle school students. The program, which began February 4 and continues through April 30, meets twice a week at Glenwood Middle School. Twenty Glenwood students are participating. Fifteen of them participated in an after school tennis and academics program at USI in summer 2007.

The Glenwood students will make five field trips to USI for hiking, yoga, swimming, basketball, and a cook-out, but the majority of the program will take place at Glenwood.

The fitness portion of the program was developed by USI students majoring in exercise science, general physical education, and physical education teaching. Students in a health and safety education course led by Dr. Stephanie Bennett, assistant professor in physical education, developed lesson plans for the nutrition component of the program.

“Everyone in the department is involved,” Bower said. “It’s a great learning experience for all of us in the department but it wouldn’t have been possible without the CSI program and that initial DVD.”

Bower and Charmaine McDowell, manager of marketing and business development in Extended Services, appeared in front of the National Association for Kinesiology, Physical Education in Higher Education (NAKPEHE) conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January to discuss the SMART Youth Fitness and Nutrition DVD.

The program has received grants from the Indiana Association of Health and Fitness and the Bower-Suhrheinrich College of Education and Human Services.

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