Abstract
Obesity is a major issue in America’s society. As rates continue to climb, more and more preventative programs will arise in order to prevent the onset of this condition. However, the effectiveness of health and wellness programs for children have not been evaluated. Data was used from Project HYPE (Healthy Youth for Physical Excellence), an eight-week long youth health and wellness program for boys and girls ages eight to 15. Participants underwent an exercise testing protocol before the start of intervention, and after the eight-week intervention participants underwent the same protocol. Collected health and fitness variables include blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), maximal push-up score and Pacer (shuttle run) score for each participant. A paired t-test was used to analyze the data and p-value was set at <.05. In health outcomes, BMI slightly increased (P =.16, P =.10) for both boys and girls while systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased for boys (P =.04, P =.06) and systolic and diastolic blood pressure increased for girls (P =.27, P =.03). In fitness outcomes, maximal push-up score increased significantly (P =.000001, P =.5.1 E-09) and Pacer Score increased significantly (P =.0068, P =.0013) for both boys and girls. This results of this study indicate that a youth health and wellness program can help its’ participants maintain a healthy BMI while significantly improving fitness outcomes in children ages eight to 15.