Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S (Healthy Eating And Living in Schools)™ is an innovative and culturally tailored program that focuses on increasing calorie literacy among pre-adolescents. By targeting pre-adolescent children in communities with a disproportionate burden of obesity and it’s related illnesses, HEALS delivers an interactive and exciting calorie-centered educational intervention to children and their parents with the goal of imparting behavioral skills required to manage calories, and behavioral changes required to maintain or initiate a healthy lifestyle.
Our goal is to promote a healthy understanding of calories as food energy and the necessary balance between food consumption and physical activity. We educate participants about their individual daily caloric requirement and how to balance their energy needs with appropriate levels of caloric intake and physical activity. HEALS encourages children to read menu-boards, menus and Nutrition Facts labels to obtain caloric information for foods and to make healthier food choices.
Using the “traffic light” model which categorizes foods as “Go”, “Slow” and “Whoa”, we help participants to distinguish between nutrient densities of foods and to simplify the complexity of the calorie message.
Hip Hop HEALS (Healthy Eating And Living in Schools)™ focuses on conferring specific behavioral skills required to help individuals navigate within their environments, specifically with regard to fast food restaurants, and to limit poor food choices. The goals for pre-adolescent participants are:
- To teach the meaning of the numbers on restaurant menu boards
- To teach the concept of individual caloric requirement
- To provide a point of reference comparing a daily caloric set goal versus calorie postings on menus
For parents/caregivers of pre-adolescent participants, the goals are:
- To help guide the parent/caregiver on food purchases for their child, specifically at fast food restaurants
- That this information will assist the parent/caregiver in navigating food purchases for themselves.
