(EA03-04-25) Staff Perception of CATCH (Coordinated Approach to Child’s Health) Middle School Program in Three Schools in Northern Illinois

Scientific conference where the work was recently presented: Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE) 2024

Date on which the work was previously presented at the scientific conference listed: October 2024

Objectives: The Coordinated Approach to Child’s Health (CATCH) program focuses on nutrition education, physical activity, and limiting screen time to prevent childhood obesity in the United States. While this program has been implemented in elementary schools in Northern Illinois in prior years, this program was new to middle schools in the academic year 2022-2023. The objective of this study was conducting elicitation interviews with the program staff for qualitative program evaluation.

Methods: Graduate students from Northern Illinois University taught CATCH lessons in three middle schools. This included lessons about building a meal, reading nutrition labels, importance of water, sugar content in drinks, cardiovascular health, healthy breakfast, MyPlate, portion control, and limiting screen time. To evaluate the effectiveness of the program from the staff perspective, eight graduate students and two school teachers provided their reflections of the CATCH middle school program. Two researchers coded the reflections, and the qualitative responses were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results: Six themes and supporting sub-themes were identified, (1) benefits of the program (encourages physical activity and healthy eating habits), (2) curriculum of the program (several nutrition and physical activity related lessons), (3) what worked well throughout the CATCH program (forming relationships, hands-on activities, and shorter lessons), (4) weaknesses of CATCH program (answer key mistakes, outdated examples/information, and worksheets), (5) graduate student’s experience with the program (gained professional skills, and challenging age group to teach), and (6) suggested improvements for CATCH program (visual aids, framing benefits for middle schoolers, shorter survey, and improved formula calculations).

Conclusions: Reflections summarized overall program implementation feedback and highlighted possible program updates for improved delivery in subsequent academic years.

Funding Sources: DeKalb County Community Foundation