The first body owner's programme: an integrated school-based physical and nutrition education programme

The principal aim of the First Body Owner's programme was to compare and contrast the effects of behavioural self-monitoring and traditional health education strategies in the teaching of a combined physical and nutrition education programme to ten-year-olds.Classes of children were randomly assigned (four classes to each treatment) to either (a) Control programme-50 minutes daily physical education with an emphasis on endurance activities; or (b) Self-monitoring of physical and dietary behaviours plus daily physical education (PE) as in the control programme; or (c) Health education-two half-hour lessons per week devoted to a physical health and nutrition curriculum, plus daily PE; or (d) combined self-monitoring and health education, plus daily PE. Four classes of ten-year-olds which did not participate in the daily PE programme were included in a subsidiary group to enable the evaluation of the effects of daily physical education.The intervention lasted for approximately five months, before and after which seven groups of dependent variables were measured on each child. These included: biomedical and motor performance variables (e.g. body fat indices); dietary behaviours; food beliefs and attitudes; perceptions of common physical activities; ratings of relaxation and classroom behaviours; and self concepts and personal values.In the combined treatment, changes were observed in biomedical status (improved physical health), motor performance, and in behaviours and beliefs. Self monitoring alone was associated with similar changes in biomedical variables and in behavioural variables, though these were generally less pronounced than in the combined treatment. Health education yielded effects mainly in the cognitive domain. The implications of the results for disease risk reduction and for health education are outlined. © 1987 Oxford University Press.