Jacob Smith, center, talks with classmate Christopher Green as he eats his apple during lunch at Stratton Elementary School. Smith and Green are third graders participating in the Healthy Heart Project. Elizabeth Hernandez, left, and Gladys Nava look on. (photos by Dana Johnson)
VUSN research to improve kids’ health
Front to back, Justin Northcutt, Wilson Phillips, Cayci Heist, and other classmates, all third-grade students at Stratton Elementary School, do a strengthening exercise game of tug-of-war in P. E. class as part of the Healthy Heart Project.
Tom Cook, Ph.D. weighs Ladundrey Brooks, a third-grade student at Stratton Elementary School.
Signs mark Healthy Heart choices in the cafeteria line at Stratton Elementary School, one of the participating schools in the Healthy Heart Project.
Tom Cook, Ph.D., assistant professor of Nursing, has gone back to grade school. He’s been given a three-year, $250,000 KO1 federal grant to study third-grade students at three Nashville Metro elementary schools to prevent cardiovascular disease later in life.
Cook began collecting information from about 160 participating third graders at Westmeade, Hattie Cotton, and Stratton Elementary Schools in December. He recorded their body mass index, height and weight, measured aerobic capacity, checked their cholesterol, and measured their skin folds using calipers to determine the thickness of a fold of skin and assess body fat.
Cook says previous research has shown cardiovascular disease begins in early childhood, so targeting prevention in young children is important. Cook’s work becomes increasingly significant given the growing concern over the number of overweight and inactive children, and children fighting adult onset diabetes.
“A third of all children are overweight,” Cook said. “My research stems from a passion to help children make choices that can affect their cardiovascular health and put off the time that they have cardiovascular disease.”
Cook is currently in the intervention phase of his study, educating participating students about their hearts and general cardiovascular health, and helping students begin to choose healthy meal options at school and at home.
Cook has placed signs along lunch lines at the Metro schools, indicating the healthiest foods to help them make better meal choices. Cook is using a model of a similar study conducted at UNC Chapel Hill. “The model for the healthy heart program doesn’t have nutrition or a family component in it, this is something I added,” he said.
Third graders from Stratton Elementary School taking part in Cook’s study have only been involved with the project for about three weeks, but they’re already more aware of their cardiovascular health. Donovan McKinnie has been paying attention.
“Oxygen flows through your heart…and to eat a lot of nutritious foods, do exercise and drink a lot of water and milk,” McKinnie said.
“The wrong foods can make you really sick and damage your heart,” said third-grader Elizabeth Hernandez. And fellow student Paula Marcellus said she’s learned a few things too: “That you’re not supposed to smoke, and you gotta eat healthy food and care for your heart, and give your heart nice things so your heart won’t be bad.”
Tara Beever, one of Cook’s research assistants at Stratton, and an exercise physiology student at Middle Tennessee State University, monitors what the students are eating. “Overall, their choices are pretty good. A lot of them just get fruit as their snack,” she said.
Cook is also working to intensify the students’ physical education classes. Each school has given Cook permission to boost exercise plans in P.E. throughout the duration of his study, and all students in the class benefit from the temporary change.
Research assistant Cecilia Salas, also an exercise physiology student at M.T.S.U., said she’s noticing improvements. “The minute they walk into the door to the minute they leave, they’re moving. Their flexibility has increased and they’re able to bend further,” Salas said.
Stratton P.E. teachers Carolyn Mitchell and Robert Bice frequently remind students to feel their hearts pounding as they work harder, and to check their pulse, giving children at an early age a basic knowledge of the importance of an increased heart rate.
Students involved in Cook’s study spend about 40 minutes in the enhanced P.E. class and about 20 minutes watching informational videos made by Cook about the heart, nutrition, and exercise.
The intervention phase of Cook’s research also includes the parents of the children involved in his study. Parents come to school one night a week to talk about healthy eating and activity behaviors children can practice at home.
Don Paul Gross’s daughter, Olivia, is in the study at Westmeade. Gross says it’s making a difference. “I was starting to connect a lot of dots with changes I’m seeing in my daughter and what’s going on at school. She’s paying attention to labels and asking questions,” he said.
Gross says Olivia and her brothers are even counting calories in soda choices, and checking fat grams on the ice cream carton. He says Cook’s work is an added plus for parents, who usually fight an uphill battle with children over meal choices. “It’s just refreshing as a parent to feel we’re getting help, because most of what’s pushed on kids isn’t healthy,” Gross said.
Cook says the schools have been very supportive, and that the children are excited to be involved in the study. “It’s more fun than I thought,” he said.
In March, Cook plans to record the same physiologic data of the children in hopes of finding improvements and changes in behavior from the beginning of his study. By April, Cook plans to begin examining all of the data collected from the students and release his findings.