Amherst Office

Research and Extension Put a SPIN on Health Education

You can’t teach kids unless you reach kids.  That’s why the award-winning Strength and Power in Nutrition (SPIN) obesity prevention program involved kids in the planning.  “Kids told us they wanted to have fun,” said Dr. Jean Anliker, Professor and Director of the UMass Extension Nutrition Education Programs, “so that’s what we gave them.”  It’s all part of making programs “community based, not just community placed,” in the words of Dr. Elena Carbone, Associate Professor of Nutrition in UMass Amherst’s Department of Nutrition and partner in this project.

SPIN, developed through a partnership between the UMass Extension Nutrition Education Program and the Department of Nutrition, empowers young teens by giving them tools to question marketing, buy healthier foods and beverages, prepare healthy recipes, and enjoy more physical activity. To engage kids, SPIN uses lively, interactive lessons based around themes like music, fantasy, games, and travel—things teens are interested in. But discovering the best way to have a real impact on this notoriously intractable population didn’t happen overnight. “To make it really relevant to teens, we spent over a year doing data collection with them through interviews, focus groups, and workshops,” says Anliker. “It’s a perfect model of how research and Extension can pull together.”

And unlike many after-school programs for teens, SPIN’s eight-week sessions enjoy a surprisingly high retention rate, and in some cases even a waiting list. That’s one reason that Carbone and Anliker are working to develop a website that will bring SPIN to teens around the country and beyond. “This is something kids could use in all kinds of settings, from after-school to in-school,” says Carbone. “We want it to be a tool in educators’ toolkits that’s innovative and fun.”

Clearly, the “community-based” approach is working. Last year, over 63,000 children and parents throughout Massachusetts benefited from UMass Extension Nutrition Education Programs —an effort that partners with public schools and a wide range of community organizations across the Commonwealth to design and deliver programs that meet families and young people where they live, whether they’re choosing culturally significant fruits and vegetables at the farmers market or preparing a meal from a recipe learned at school.

These collaborations are key to the program’s success.  “Our collaborators value our programs so much that they commit themselves to these efforts,” says Anliker, “and when everyone works together, real changes happen.”