Hearts N' Parks, year 2: magnet centers moving from discovering the benefits to delivering the benefits

Parks & Recreation, July, 2003

NRPA joins its partner, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, in commending the 50 Hearts N' Parks magnet centers as they complete the first of a three-year agreement to implement the Hearts N' Parks Community Mobilization initiative. As the tables on pp. 48-49 show, during its first year, the program produced statistically significant improvements in heart-healthy eating knowledge and physical activity.

Hearts N' Parks addresses factors related to cardiovascular disease, including physical activity and balanced nutrition. The initiative incorporates heart-healthy information, activities and behaviors into existing programs rather than create new resources. This added-value approach assists park and recreation departments infuse heart-healthy information, programs and approaches into after-school programs, summer camps, senior programming and other offerings.

An additional goal of Hearts N' Parks is to demonstrate the ability of the park and recreation profession to deliver health-promotion information and promote heart-healthy behaviors in a way that makes a genuine difference. That's where the outcomes assessment supports an improved professional standard and expanded credibility for parks and recreation. Each magnet center is being provided scientifically developed surveys sanctioned by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to administer before and after the program. The results show that people of all ages taking part in Hearts N' Parks become healthier. Let's look at some of those results.

Delivering the Benefits

Children's scores increased significantly from pre-test to post-test in heart-healthy eating knowledge, behavior and intention. Although there was no significant pre- to post-test change in their physical activity attitude, both scores are close to 9 on a 0-12 scale, suggesting that most children already had a positive attitude about physical activity before they began their programs, and that did not change.

Although the post-test score for heart-healthy eating knowledge is high, children's scores on sections regarding eating behavior and intention have much room for improvement. When given a choice between eating an unhealthful food and a similar but healthier substitute, children say they tend to make the healthier choice only 56.5 percent of the time on average. Likewise, their intention to make a healthful eating choice when provided specific circumstances is indicated in only 55 percent of questions, on average.

At the beginning of the program, children checked off from a list of 14 activities things that they like to do, that they've done in the past week and that they'd like to learn how to do. On average, they checked off nine activities that they like to do; the activities most frequently chosen were swimming, games (e.g., tag, hopscotch) and bicycling. They averaged four activities done in the past week, with exercises (e.g., jumping jacks), games and swimming the most common. Activities that they would like to learn garnered the fewest checks, an average of 2.6 per child, led by football, tennis and volleyball.

At the end of the program, children checked off activities from the same list, but with an additional category, "things I learned and did this summer." The questionnaire instructed them to check off activities wherever they applied to these headings:

* "Something new I learned."

* "I got better at this."

* "I would like to play this again."

They checked off an average of five activities learned by the end of the program. The distribution of activities learned was wide--each was checked off between 32 percent and 39 percent of the time. Under activities that children got better at, the average was just over five per person. Exercises, games and jumping rope were the most common activities cited in that column. Finally, children listed 5.5 activities on average that they would like to play again, the most common of which were games and basketball.

Adults Discover the Benefits

Adult Hearts N' Parks participants demonstrated significant improvement in every attribute tested. The results on page 49 show that, while further improvement is possible in most areas, adult participants in general finished their programs with more knowledge about proper nutrition, overweight/ obesity risks, how to engage in proper physical activity, causes of high blood pressure and how to control high cholesterol.

By the end of the program, participants on average considered healthy eating habits to be between "somewhat important" and "very important" to them. When tested after their programs, they were significantly less likely to make excuses for not engaging in physical activity. Self-reported physical activity scores suggest that adults were significantly more active and engaged in physical activity after their programs. Post-test figures for bicycling, walking and golf show significant increases. In addition, post-program tests indicated an average of eight fewer hours spent each week doing inactive things such as watching TV.