College of Health

Objective: Prevent childhood obesity among high school soccer players (HSSP) ages 14–19 years-old in Oregon.

Description: In June 2017 we concluded the 2-y intervention. This 5-year project will conclude in May 2018. Three key program outputs include: A field-tested, 4-lesson, high school sport nutrition curriculum supplemented with three life-skill team-building workshops, and a 3-D animation computer game for experiential learning. The curriculum is being peer-reviewed now; an enhanced cloud-based system named WavePipe field-tested to manage human studies data collection, monitoring, and automated analyses and report generation; and development of a sports mobile game application prototype concept and wireframe.

Evaluation: Among 388 HSSP who completed the study (51% attrition rate in 2-y; intervention group n = 278; comparison group n = 110), 58% were females, 38% were Latino, 38% participated in school breakfast program and/or national school lunch program, mean age was 15.3 (1.1 years). Compared to the comparison group, the intervention group significantly decreased in added sugar intake by 12g/d, but had no changes in fruits and vegetable (FV) and saturated fat consumption. Physical activity (PA) was significantly higher in-soccer season than out-of-soccer season for both intervention and comparison groups.

Conclusions and Implications: This is the first study to engage HSSP in a 2-y obesity prevention program targeting sport nutrition education, healthy eating behaviors for growth, performance and health, emphasizing the importance of daily PA and life-skills experiential learning. Overall, FV intakes were maintained over the 2-y intervention but were below the dietary recommendations, although higher than those typically reported in the literature for youth and youth athletes. The 2-y intervention significantly decreased added sugar intake, by lowering the frequency of selecting cake/cookies and ice cream foods. PA recommendations were met during soccer season, but below recommendations out-of-season. Thus, it is important to engage active youth yearlong, helping them to make daily PA a priority in their lifestyle.