Middle school program helped students lose weight long term

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A new program called Students for Nutrition and Exercise (SNaX) is helping obese students in Southern California have healthier weights for longer periods of time.

According to a recent article, SNax combined school-wide environmental changes, encouragement fo healthy eating, healthy foods in cafeterias and peer-led education and marketing to help students change their body mass index (BMI).

Over 1,368 students heights and weights were assessed before and after two years of the program in over five schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District where thirty percent of the students were classified as obese at the start of the program.

Two years later students showed a “significant decline” in BMI, around nine pounds lower in body weight, according to the article.

The study was put on by RAND, a nonprofit research organization and findings will be published in the May issue of Pediatrics.

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