Analyzing the Effects of Physical Activity and School-Based Interventions on Weight-Related Behaviors: A Critique

Running head: Program Planning and Evaluation
Program Planning and Evaluation
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1Program Planning and Evaluation
Title:
The objective of this paper is to critically analyze the study by Evans et al., (2016), in
which the effects of physical activity based health interventions and a school based vegetable
garden are analyzed on their ability to improve their body mass and behaviors that influenced
the weights among ethnically heterogeneous and low income groups.
Brief Description (including methodology):
In the study, the author’s attempts to show a relation between coordinated schools
based interventions and improvements in the health behaviors of the students and als their
parents and improvements in their status of weight. The study is developed on baseline data
from the study called “Texas, Grow! Eat!, Go!” (TGEG) cluster-randomized controlled trial
(RCT) (Spears-Lanoix et al., 2015). The design comprised of factorial RCT where 28 schools
were provided one of the 4 treatment options, namely: 1. CATCH with LGEG and WAT , 2.
Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH), 3. CATCH with school garden
intervention- Learn Grow Eat GO (LGEG), 4. CATCH with physical activity intervention-
Walk across Texas (WAT) and (Warren et al., 2012). The study measured variables such as
the weight status of the students, consumption of sugar sweetened beverages and vegetables,
sedentary behavior and physical activity. The study analyzed the data of 1369 students and
1206 parents, and comprised of 52% Hispanics and 18% African Americans and 78% were
from low income groups. At the baseline, no significant differences were observed in the key
variables or demographics within the 4 treatment groups. The authors concludes that the
TGEG study was a success as it was able to target a large number of students as well as their
parents who are at an elevated risks of developing obesity and different co morbidities related
to obesity, and uses a new and collaborated strategy to develop an effective intervention
program (Evans et al., 2016).