Laura Dvorak, RN, Healthy Hearts Club Coordinator
Dr. Tracy Nelson, Associate Professor, CSU’s Department of Health and Exercise Science
Dr. Gary Luckasen, Heart Center of the Rockies
so as they got older, they would be less at risk.” Dr. Nelson’s analysis reinforced Dr. Luckasen’s belief that it would take family changes to turn the statistics around. And, based on the findings, a new effort is now underway to design an intervention program to help not just the children, but whole families at risk for cardiovascular disease. The Healthy Hearts Club and the Department of Health and Exercise Science have received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CSU Agricultural Experiment Station to design an intervention program for families. As part of that, focus groups were convened, says Laura Dvorak, RN, BSN, Healthy Hearts Club coordinator. “They were made up of families whose 4th graders participated in the Healthy Hearts Club. We asked them, ‘what kind of intervention would work for you?’” The parents defined two major components, she says. “One, they don’t want anything that takes a lot of time. Two, they want the school to be the center of the program because that makes it easy to get to.” For the grant, Dr. Nelson says, the past year was for the focus groups and the planning. “This year’s effort is to design and pilot a new program at Lopez elementary. It will have the same focus on the kids with the hope that, in turn, families will be affected.” “It will be our Healthy Heart Club for 5th graders who participated in 4th grade,” Dvorak adds. “They will participate in a lifestyle club which includes exercise, eating healthy and not smoking. We are hoping to build a mentoring relationship between the 4th and 5th grade kids. We want to use those kids who naturally seek healthy lifestyles and pair them with someone at risk.” Dr. Luckasen says the idea is that by educating the kids, they will become invested in their own health. “We want a peer to peer interaction. That means a classmate works out with you, eats
lunch with you or texts ‘how are you doing?’ The hope is that they will take that home to the family and that they will be the agent of change in the family: ‘Let’s go for a walk and let’s eat this.’” He says that will more likely work than having an outsider go in and try to tell parents what they need to do. “It’s like learning to ski. It’s a lot easier when you are young. Kids learn it quickly and like it. The older you are, the more resistant you may be.” The new pilot program will be built on the successful effort of the current Healthy Hearts Club, Dvorak says. “Each day builds on the last. We will also have pre and post tests for knowledge growth. And, with parental permission we’ll collect information on cholesterol and BMI.” The current structure is built on a four-day curriculum in the elementary schools in partnership with the Healthy Kids Club. The first day, students are taught about the cardiovascular system, HDL and LDL cholesterol, and healthy lifestyle changes. The second day is about nutrition, the third day is exercise and the fourth day is the screening. “Every school we go into, we get at least 60 percent who participate in the screening,” Dvorak says. “We also do a behavioral risk survey with both the elementary and high school students. ‘How many fruits and vegetables do you eat? Are you motivated to exercise and how many minutes a day do you exercise? Do you smoke? Are you eating breakfast?’ Our high school program has a one-day presentation with the second day being the screening day. We sometimes recapture students we had in the Healthy Hearts Club in 4th grade.” The healthy heart effort is even more critical with today’s younger generations, Dr. Luckasen says. “In the past 20 years, we’ve seen an increase in obesity. They are becoming less active. Activity has decreased markedly because of computer games, texting and cell phones. There’s also
been a significant decrease in physical education in the schools. You look back at the ‘60s and the President’s physical fitness tests: that has all gone by the wayside. Kids may now do club sports but some kids don’t have the funds or the transportation.” Exercise has to be a regular part of every day life, he says. “If you are not burning off calories then the bad diet becomes worse. So we want to give them information about why that is important. Some of these kids already have amazingly high cholesterol and a lot of that is lifestyle.” And it often comes from the parents’ choices, he explains. “If you are in a home where parents smoke, if they are overweight and have unhealthy habits, the kids will follow that. We need to get these kids started on a healthy lifestyle.” In working on that particular goal, the collaborative effort between the Heart Center of the Rockies and CSU will continue, Dr. Nelson says. “We are preparing to apply for an NIH (National Institutes of Health) grant. It would take the Lopez pilot and use it on a larger scale in rural Colorado. We will propose using pre and post tests to register knowledge gained and use screening, adding in a potential for following them into high school.” This would create a program that could be replicated in other areas, she says. “We want to make it low-cost and sustainable by incorporating the lessons into the curriculum. There is so little evidence about cardiovascular risk in rural areas in general so this would allow us to assess the risks and then develop an intervention.” Dr. Luckasen adds, “We know that, at some point, grant money goes away so we want to build something that is self-sustaining so that the impact continues.”
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Kay Rios, Ph.D., is a freelance writer in Fort Collins.