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Dearborn Obesity Prevention Program Caters to Arab Americans
Dearborn is set to be a part of a new program that aims to study and help prevent obesity, particularly among Arab American children, thanks to a nearly $73,000 grant.
Suha Kridli, assistant professor at Oakland University’s School of Nursing who secured the grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation for the “Improving Health Behaviors in Arab American Youth” project, said she selected Dearborn for its high concentration of Arab Americans.
“Childhood obesity is everywhere and we see it more in minority groups,” she said. “There is published data on the problem, but there was no prevention program ever in the Arab community that was tailored to their needs.”
That’s where Kridli and her partner Linda Jaber, associate professor at Wayne State University’s College of Pharmacy, come in.
Kridli and Jaber, who have been researching the growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes and obesity in the Arab American community, are tweaking an established healthy eating and lifestyle curriculum called “Just for Kids” to better fit Arab American students in Dearborn.
“I believe we are the first people to tweak it,” she said. “We don’t believe in a cookie cutter approach.”
The plan, she said, is to for an advisory committee comprised of Dearborn public schools faculty and community members to offer suggestions for changes to the curriculum, like removing mention of foods that Arab Americans typically don’t eat, like pork, and including mention of holidays that they celebrate, like Eid.
“We need roughly about 100 elementary school students and about 50 high school students. We’re hoping that we’re going to get more,” Kridli said. “It’s a voluntary program for the students. The parents have to consent to it and the kids have to assent to it.”
High school students will get trained as mentors and meet with third, fourth and fifth grade students for after-school sessions over a period of four months, which include lessons on healthy behavior and physical activity.
“There’s a lot of research about how mentoring works. In terms of changing kids’ behavior, little kids tend to listen to older kids and look to them as role models,” she said.
One lesson features a story about a bunny who feels sad and decides to eat a lot of cookies, which teaches children about emotional eating, she said. The stories never use terms like fat and have the kids think critically on healthy and unhealthy behavior. The program will also include goal-setting, so students with their mentors will create tasks for themselves like jumping for a certain amount of time or going outside to play instead of watching TV.
The parents are not forgotten in this prevention program.
“Similar things are going to be discussed with the parents. We’re hoping that the parent and the child will be on the same page,” she said.
Kridli said Jaber is cultivating a culturally sensitive program for adults that includes healthy eating tips, ways to cook better, learning to read food labels and grocery shopping best practices.
“Because you cannot change the kids’ behaviour without involving the parents,” she said.
She said the goal is to couple the mentoring with the parent involvement to lead to a positive outcome.
“We’re hoping that this will lead to something that will be sustainable and can be delivered in different schools in Dearborn,” she said.
The grant lasts for one year until April 2015, and includes the prep work going on now through the analysis of the data collected after the program ends in December. The program will kick off in the fall in Dearborn at one elementary school and one high school. Parents will hear from their children’s school if they are eligible to be a part of the prevention program.
Aysha Jamali
Press & Guide Newspapers