A Pilot and Feasibility Study to Promote Physical and Food Literacy among Children with Intellectual Disabilities

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7. PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Children with intellectual disabilities (ID) are more likely than typically developing children to have higher cardio-metabolic risk factors, lower levels of health-related fitness, and be overweight and obese. As such, they represent a health disparities population. Low physical activity levels, increased sedentary time, and poor diet quality are likely contributors to these inequities. Our goal is to develop strategies that enable children with ID to attain optimal health by meeting US Physical Activity Guidelines and Dietary Guidelines for Americans. To achieve this goal, children with ID must develop physical literacy and food literacy - the knowledge, skills, confidence and desire to participate in physical activity and make healthy food choices. This project seeks to: 1) test the feasibility of a physical literacy and food literacy intervention for children with ID, and 2) preliminarily assess the efficacy of the intervention for increasing physical literacy including movement skills, confidence, and desire to participate in physical activity, and food literacy including knowledge around making healthy food choices, basic food preparation skills, and engaging in healthy eating behavior. Thirty male (n=15) and female (n=15) children with ID ages 12-16 will participate in a 16-week combined sport sampling and healthy eating education program. Weekly sessions will include 60 minutes of sports activities and 30 minutes of educational and skill activities to promote healthy eating. Sport sampling activities will aim to develop locomotor and object control skills via 4 sports: soccer, basketball, Run-Jump-Throw, and dance. Healthy eating sessions will focus on increasing knowledge to identify healthy foods and to make healthy choices, basic skills for preparing food, and a taste test thematically related to the lesson. The intervention will also include an at-home component called “Bring it Home, Give it Try.” Children will be provided with a piece(s) of sports equipment (e.g., soccer ball, jump rope) and skill cards with instructions and fun ideas for practicing sport skills outside of program sessions, and will be provided recipes related to the weekly taste test to promote healthy eating at home. The pilot intervention will be delivered in 2 waves of 15 participants each at YMCAs in eastern/central MA. Process measures of demand, acceptability, and implementation will be obtained to test feasibility, and a pretest- posttest design will allow for preliminary data on efficacy of the intervention. Measures of physical literacy include the Canadian Agility and Movement Skill Assessment, Physical Self-Inventory-ID, and Children's Self- Perceptions of Adequacy in and Predilection for Physical Activity scale. Measures of food literacy include a questionnaire of food knowledge, a test of rudimentary food preparation skills, and parent proxy report of dietary patterns based on questions from the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance Survey. This early phase study is a step toward promoting health and reducing the inequities that exist for children with ID.