Part of the SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions Toolkit.*
The OrganWise Guys Program (OWG) is a direct education and PSE change intervention designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption and increase physical activity among participants, as well as facilitate PSE changes in the settings in which it is conducted. SNAP-Ed staff or trained classroom teachers provide direct education through various curriculum to youth in child-care and school settings and provide support materials for families. The WISERCISE! program provides 10-minutes of desk-side daily physical activity in the classroom. Foods of the Month helps create a healthy cafeteria environment via daily nutrition messaging and outreach to parents. The OWG gardening curriculum helps establish gardens while children learn to grow and consume homegrown food. These curriculum focus on PSE changes by working with school wellness councils to develop policies that address foods served at school events, establish school gardens, and improve and promote school meals/snacks. Partnerships and parent/adult engagement in positive health behaviors can lead to PSE change that is sustainable and beneficial community wide.
OWG practices continuous quality improvement to its curricula, means of delivery, and integration by surveying parents, teachers, and stakeholders. In response to the need for year-round programming, after school/summer camp programming and implementation items were developed. Items for use in the homeless shelter setting were developed at the request of the W.K Kellogg Foundation and the National Center on Family Homelessness (NCFH) which include nutrition, physical activity, and social/emotional components.
A 2010 American Dietetic Association publication found OWG participants had statistically significant greater improvements in BMI, blood pressure, waist circumference, and academic scores, among low-income Hispanic and White children in particular, compared to controls.
Cost: Contact OrganWise Guys for a quote.
*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.