An investigation of the effectiveness of nutritional education, physical fitness, and cognitive-behavioral therapy on 9 to 11 year old girls' self-concept, body image, and physical activity

Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions. Despite the negative physical, psychological, social, academic, and financial effects of childhood obesity, few programs have been implemented successfully to address this burgeoning problem. The effects of a three-component intervention model, Life Fit, were examined. Participants included three 9 to 10 year old females who were overweight. The 10 week intervention consisted of two 2 hour sessions per week which included the following components: nutritional education, physical fitness, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. This research was conducted as a single case study AB design. Data was collected on each of the following variables: nutritional measures (self-reported servings of fruits and vegetables and number of servings of sweetened beverages and sodas), physical fitness (cardiorespiratory endurance, upper body muscular strength and abdominal strength), anthropometric measure (BMI), physical activity levels (average daily pedometer counts), sedentary activity levels (number of self-reported hours in specific sedentary activities), self-concept (Multidimensional Self-Concept Scale (MSCS; Bracken, 1992), and body image (The Body Esteem Scale for Children (Mendelson & White, 1994). Data were interpreted using a visual inspection of graphed outcomes. Results revealed that participants improved their upper body endurance and cardiorespiratory fitness. All participants maintained their pre-intervention BMI. There were no improvements noted in the other measures. Limitations and implications for future research will be discussed in the paper