Part of the SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions Toolkit.*
The One Healthy Breakfast Program (OHBP) is a direct education, social marketing, and PSE change intervention designed to improve home, community, and school food environments to ensure that every student starts their day with a healthy breakfast. Direct education is delivered by classroom teachers utilizing the Breakfast Learning Activities for Students and Teachers (BLAST) curriculum, an interactive lesson series that encourages students in grades 4-8 to learn behavior-changing skills through analyzing and evaluating foods and their food choices. Social marketing campaigns take place through branded promotional materials for use in schools and the community, monthly newsletters to families, and corner store social marketing to encourage students to choose healthy breakfast items. PSE change occurs through promotion of breakfast after the bell options in schools. These components are combined with community engagement to provide students and their families the tools needed to choose healthier options in the morning regardless of whether they eat at home, school, or at the corner store.
- Evaluated
Researchers conducted a randomized control trial with 16 schools (8 intervention; 8 control). Schools were over 50% eligible for free and reduced-price meals. All students and their families in these schools were encouraged to participate in the program. Two to three corner stores within a few blocks of each school also participated. Participants were 4th-6th graders at baseline, followed until they were in grades 6th-8th. Among the 1,362 students in the randomized control trial, after 2.5 years, students in intervention schools had participated in the School Breakfast Program 53.8% of days, compared with 24.9% of days among students in control schools. There was no difference between intervention and control in the combined incidence of overweight and obesity. The incidence and prevalence of obesity was higher in intervention schools than in controls. Further research is needed to identify approaches to increase participation in the School Breakfast Program that do not increase obesity among students.
Materials are available to order by emailing: contact@thefoodtrust.org.
*SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions: An Obesity Prevention Toolkit for States is a compilation of interventions. The toolkit was developed by USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, The Association of SNAP-Ed Nutrition Education Administrators (ASNNA), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Training and Research Translation (Center TRT), and the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR), a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the USDA. It is designed and updated to help state SNAP-Ed administrative and implementing agencies identify evidence-based obesity prevention programs and policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) strategies and interventions to include in their SNAP-Ed plans.