Game on Philly: Engaging Underserved Middle School Youth in Out-of- School Time Sports and Nutrition Education

Overview

Game on Philly is a multi-component out-of-school time intervention delivered by trained sport-based youth development coaches and health navigators using evidenced-based programming. The program evaluation assesses the impact of this minimal-risk intervention to reduce the prevalence of obesity-related health disparities in racial and ethnic minority middle school youth. The program is a virtual sport-based youth development program, supplemented with nutrition education. The program was modified due to Covid-19 and is entirely virtual. Using a quasi-experimental design, six schools are assigned to the intervention arm and six schools are assigned to the comparison arm. Participants in intervention schools receive access to daily, online after school programming, with live sessions with sports providers (via Zoom), weekly team meetings with a health coach (via Zoom), text-messages via the Remind app, and the monthly delivery of Activity Kits directly to their homes for six months. Comparison school participants receive access to the Game on Philly app with workout and sports content and receive one activity kit delivery at the start of the program. Parent-child dyads recruited from each school complete surveys at baseline and at the end of the 6-month program (follow-up). It is hypothesized that youth participating in the intervention will experience significantly greater increases in physical activity at the end of the 6-month intervention compared to youth participating in the comparison arm (primary outcome). Secondary outcomes will examine changes in dietary intake, self-efficacy for physical activity and positive youth development.

Conditions