This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licenseactive enough during the program sessions. Since the program is still ongoing, however, it will be a
few more years before there will be definitive results about weight gain, or lack thereof.Questions
➢ It is hard to disagree with the purposes of this study—reducing the prevalence of obesity.
But does it really show what it claims? Be a deliberate skeptic for a moment and ask
yourself these questions:
➢ If the students were volunteers, how typical do you think they are of all students?
➢ And if the teachers are receiving a large research grant to implement the program, might
they be working harder to do a good job than most of us ordinarily work?
➢ An important ambiguity about the program was the fact that it included both physical
activity and homework assistance. Think about this ambiguity.
➢ If the researchers split up these two elements—offering only one or the other at any one
school—how might the split affect the outcomes?
➢ Would different sorts of students volunteer as a result of the split, and how if at all would
their selection matter?References
Ogden, C., Flega, K., Carroll, M. & Johnson, C. (2002). Prevalence and trends in overweight among U.S.
children and adolescents, 1999-2000. Journal of the American Medical Assocation, 288(14), 1728-1732.
Narayan, K., Boyle, J., Thompson, T., Sorensen, S., & Williamson, D. (2003). Lifetime risk for diabetes
mellitus in the United States. Journal of the American Medical Association, 290(14), 1884-1890.
Bawa, S. (2005). The role of the consumption of beverages in the obesity epidemic. Journal of the Royal
Society for the Promotion of Health, 125(3), 124-128.Yin, Z., Hanes, J., Moore, J., Humbles, P., Barbeau,
& Gutin, B. (2005). An after-school physical activity program for obesity prevention in children.
Evaluation and the Health Professions, 28(1), 67-89.Educational Psychology 325 A Global Text