THE HEALTHY MONDAY CAMPAIGN: HEALTH AWARENESS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Childhood obesity is a major public health concern for Americans. Many school-based health interventions and campaigns have been in place in the elementary school setting to help lower the rates of childhood obesity and to make students aware of their health. This study focuses on the implementation of the Healthy Monday campaign to fourth and fifth grade students in two Kentucky elementary schools. Particularly the focal points of the campaign consist of nutrition and physical activity. The campaign highlights two spin-off campaigns from the Healthy Monday campaign titled the Monday Mile and Meatless Monday. This study looks at the effectiveness of the overall health campaign to the fourth and fifth grade students, their parents, and teachers in the two schools. Pre and post surveys were developed in order to test four components of the health campaign: campaign awareness, attitudes, nutrition knowledge, and behavior change. This study shows that the health campaign increased student’s awareness, nutrition knowledge, and behavior change. Also the parent and teacher population showed significant increase in campaign awareness and behavior change. Overall, the health campaign created awareness among all three populations