You are on page 1of 7

SOCIAL MEDIA HEALTHY HABITS

Incorporating Social Media into a Healthy Habits Nutrition Program for Teachers, Students, and
Parents
Andrea Belloli
University of Maryland, College Park Dietetic Internship

SOCIAL MEDIA HEALTHY HABITS

Introduction:
Marylands Food Supplement Nutrition Education (FSNE) program strives to improve
the overall health of the community through various initiatives aimed at individuals of all ages.
In particular, the School Community Programs initiative addresses multiple levels of the
community and school environment to impact behavior change among children, parents, and
teachers (FSNE, n.d.). FSNE is currently looking to expand its reach to encompass a larger
school community through the implementation of new programs that would target a diverse
group of audiences.
Recent research indicates that the most successful school-based nutrition programs
involve participation from all sectors of the school environment (Middleton, Keegan, &
Henderson, 2012). Children are more likely to adopt the healthy behaviors learned during class
when teachers, parents, and other school staff are actively involved (Middleton, Keegan, &
Henderson, 2012).
Many of the School Community Programs in-school initiatives have been widely
successful in changing and improving the nutritional habits of children while engaging the
teachers in the instruction of the nutrition education lessons. At the end of these lessons, parents
are provided with take-home newsletters and have the option of participating in a corresponding
text message program. Getting parents involved is extremely important because they exert a
significant impact on their childrens eating and physical activity behaviors (Rausch et al., 2015).
Children are more likely to reflect the habits of their parents, making it increasingly important
for parents to be a role model and set a good example for their children. Efforts to increase
healthy habit formation should thus be aimed not only at the classroom level but at the family
level as well to have a more profound impact (Rausch et al., 2015).
If FSNE wishes to create increased community involvement, the program needs to
motivate its teachers and families to want to adopt these learned habits outside of the classroom.
Coordinated School Health Programs (CSHPs) are a unique approach to accomplishing this
objective. These programs focus on reaching children and their parents to facilitate changes in
nutrition and physical activity, behaviors, and attitudes by addressing social, emotional and
physical health from an ecological perspective (Rausch, 2015). Since most of these aspects are
already addressed within the numerous FSNE programs already in place, creating a plan that
combines the features of each would prove most successful and economical. CSHPs help to
promote behavior change on a community level and, most importantly, avoid stigmatizing
individuals while promoting lifelong healthy habits (Berger-Jenkins et. al., 2014).
Oftentimes, creating friendly competition can provoke widespread involvement in an
activity or cause. Implementing a competitive social media campaign that ties together
principles from each of the FSNE School Community Programs could help bridge the gap
between turning lessons learned in-class into healthy habits for life. Most adults and teens have
at least one social media account and check their accounts on a daily basis which makes this
campaign the most ideal platform for actively reaching all audiences. In addition to the
nutrition-related lessons taught by teachers in the classrooms, the campaign would encourage
parents, school staff, and community organizations to implement the lesson concepts at home
and share their healthy activities with friends and family on social media. Different schools
would compete against and share with one another their healthy habits in action.
Program Description:

SOCIAL MEDIA HEALTHY HABITS

Theoretical or Conceptual OriginsPopularity of social media among adults and teenagers has skyrocketed in recent years
due to its convenience and personal feel. Social media allows individuals to connect on a more
personal level with friends, family, businesses, programs, and other members of the community.
FSNE could unify all of the different schools and communities they work with by creating a
friendly and competitive social media campaign. The campaign would be called Healthy Habits
Start Here (HHSH).
Currently, FSNE relies on handouts and text messages to inform parents of the concepts
their children learned within the various school-based health programs. These two efforts alone
lack a motivational force to get parents actively involved. By getting parents to participate in the
Healthy Habits Start Here campaign, FSNE will have a better indication of the programs impact
on families outside of the school environment. The campaign will also provide FSNE with
metrics by which they can measure the success and reach of the initiatives at each of the schools.
This would allow teachers and FSNE educators to personalize their lessons to the needs of
specific schools. The main concept of the HHSH campaign is to get families to join together to
compete against families from other schools to see who can get the most people involved in
adopting healthy lifestyle habits.
Program Objectives and Intended Outcomes The intended outcome is to invoke community-wide family involvement in a campaign
for better health.
Surveys at the end of the campaign will be administered to children and their parents to
determine the success of the campaign in changing nutritional or activity-related habits.
Program seeks to identify at least a 25% increase in healthy activity and nutrition-related
habits in the post-survey compared to the pre-campaign survey.
o There will be specific categories to separate the nutrition-related questions from
questions about physical activity.
o Nutritional activities may include consuming at least one fruit and one vegetable
per day, eating at least one meal per day as a family with no distractions such as
electronics, eating whole grains, etc.
o Activity-related activities may include playing outside for at least 30 minutes per
day, trying a new sport with the family, indoor activities such as dancing on a
rainy day, etc.
Over the course of the campaign, metrics collected from the social media platform will
indicate increased numbers of participants as the campaign progresses and prizes increase
in value.
o Measured by getting 25% school participation by the end of the campaign.
Participation will be measured by counting the number of individuals that tag the
campaign in their social media posts using specific hashtags for each distinct
school.
Core ComponentsThe Healthy Habits Start Here (HHSH) campaign will take place over a specified amount
of time determined by FSNE to correspond with timelines of the various School Community
Programs. The timeline for the campaign will then be broken down into periods or segments

SOCIAL MEDIA HEALTHY HABITS

which will be assigned specific themes such as getting outside and being active, trying new fruits
and veggies, and eating dinner as a family.
To participate in the campaign, a family member must like the HHSH social media
page and tag the page in any of their related posts. Each school will be assigned a unique
hashtag, such as #CCES for Chevy Chase Elementary School, and must use the hashtag in their
posts in order for their school to get credit. In addition to tagging the campaign and using the
appropriate hashtag, participants must include either a photo or a short video clip of their family
exemplifying the theme for the current period/segment.
At the end of each segment, FSNE will calculate the number of participants from each
school using metrics generated by counting the number of school hashtags used. Only one post
per person will be counted for each segment. The school with the most participants will win a
prize and bragging rights. Prizes may include donations from local businesses, new gym
equipment, musical performances by local bands, etc. The school with the largest total
participation by the end of the campaign will win an FSNE sponsored field day event. The field
day event will consist of field games such as tug of war, kickball, and various other outdoor
games.
Implementation RequirementsMuch of the implementation of the HHSH campaign will rely heavily on FSNE educators
and staff, dietetic interns, and school teachers. The FSNE staff and dietetic interns will be
responsible for setting up and managing the social media page and creating all promotional
materials. The FSNE educators will distribute these materials to each of their classrooms and
encourage the teachers to promote the campaign.
Individuals involved in the implementation of the campaign will be assigned various
local businesses to visit and ask for prize donations for the winning schools. Letters/emails can
also be sent out to FSNE partners asking for donations. When asking for donations, businesses
will be informed of the campaigns purpose and objectives.
FSNE staff and interns will then need to begin creating a social media page, ideally
Facebook, however Twitter would also be an option. The campaign page would contain a
description of the campaign, instructions on how to participate, a list of all school hashtags,
contact information for inquires, and a list of the winning schools from each week. The social
media page should be visually appealing and easy to navigate. FSNE would also need to create a
logo to use as the profile picture and banner. The campaign logo will be placed on all
promotional messaging such as parent emails, flyers, posters, and other materials. Basic
supplies needed to implement this campaign would include a computer with internet access,
photo editing software such as Microsoft Publisher or Photoshop to create the logo and
promotional materials, and printing materials.
Once the social media page is up and running, distribution of promotional materials may
begin. FSNE educators will bring these materials to each of their schools and classrooms.
Teachers will then be responsible for sending information about the campaign home to parents.
If FSNE has a list of parent email addresses at each school, promotional emails will be sent out
encouraging families to participate. The Text2BHealthy program can also send out brief text
messages with a website link to like the campaign social media page.
At the end of each segment/period, HHSH will post the top 3 winning schools along with
their prizes on their Facebook page. The following day, FSNE will upload a second post

SOCIAL MEDIA HEALTHY HABITS

announcing the new theme for that period. It will be at the discretion of FSNE staff to determine
how prizes will be distributed to each of the schools.
Evaluation Plan:
The Healthy Habits Start Here (HHSH) campaign seeks to gain a better understanding of
whether or not the health concepts taught by FSNE educators and staff are being implemented
outside of the classroom. FSNE will evaluate if family participation in a healthy competition
among schools leads to lasting changes in behaviors and attitudes towards health and nutrition.
To determine if the actions and behaviors of students along with their families have
changed as a result of participating in the campaign, FSNE will need to collect information
before the campaign begins and after the campaign has ended. Both the children and their parents
will need to take pre- and post-campaign surveys. The childrens surveys will be administered
by teachers in the classroom and parent surveys will be sent home with the children. These
student surveys can be in a similar format to the ReFresh program surveys. The parent surveys
will need to be sent back to school with the students for collection by the teachers. FSNE
educators will collect all completed evaluations and bring them back to the FSNE staff and
interns.
Pre- and post- surveys are relatively simple and affordable. These surveys allow those
evaluating the campaign to determine the specific information they want to know about
participants, such as how many days a week does a student eat fast food or how many fruits or
vegetables do they consume daily. To maintain confidentiality, a confidentiality disclaimer will
be printed on each survey explaining that all survey results will be kept confidential and names
are not required. Survey data will be collected and data will be provided as an average for each
school, thereby not requiring specific names for students and their families. Averages from the
pre-campaign survey will be compared to the post-campaign survey to determine if behaviors
have changed.
Parents will also be provided with an informed consent form attached to the front of the
take-home survey ensuring that they understand how survey results will be used. The take home
survey for parents will contain similar questions as the survey administered to the students.
However, since the parents are the main decision makers when it comes to food and after-school
activities, their questions will be more specific. For example, FSNE will want to know how
often they prepare dinner or lunch for the family, what types of foods they purchase, and if their
children participate in organized physical activities such as a youth soccer league or unstructured
activities such as playing outside.
There are a few major drawbacks to using pre- and post-campaign surveys to collect
information. Answers to survey questions may be inaccurate if participants provide untruthful
answers based on what they think the correct response should be. It may also be difficult to get
parents to complete and return the parent surveys. Parents may be short on time or the child may
misplace the paper, making it hard to get a significant number of completed applications.
Once all pre- and post- surveys have been collected, FSNE staff and interns will begin
sorting, consolidating, and evaluating the results. Spreadsheets and graphs will be created to
illustrate any significant changes in behaviors, thoughts, and actions. Survey results will be
entered into a qualitative software program for analysis. The software can consolidate and
analyze free response survey results in a fraction of the time it would take to go through each one
by hand. Reports can be conducted to gain further insight into the campaigns effect on behavior
change by generating prominent themes across answers to various survey questions.

SOCIAL MEDIA HEALTHY HABITS

In addition to qualitative software, statistical software will be utilized to analyze survey


results. Statistical software is used to analyze dichotomous (yes/no), multiple choice, and rank
order scaling questions. FSNE staff familiar with creating pre- and post- surveys will determine
the appropriate balance of these types of questions to get the best and most accurate information
from students and parents. Paired t-tests for each survey question on the pre- and post- surveys
will be generated to show statistically significant differences between the two surveys. For
example, if you measure the number of participants who ate dinner as a family prior to and after
the campaign, is the mean number of participants eating dinner together after the campaign
significant enough to conclude that the campaign worked?
One of the objectives stated above aims for 25% school participation in the HHSH
campaign. To find out if the campaign met this objective, social media metric tools can be used
to show how many unique individuals/users used the unique school hashtags. If results show
less than 25% participated, FSNE will need to reevaluate their promotional communications and
brainstorm new ways to get families involved.
This campaign will serve as a pilot study to determine if utilizing social media is a good
way to disseminate accurate health and nutrition information to the community. If the evaluation
proves the campaign a success, FSNE can utilize this information when creating new initiatives
and programs.
Conclusion:
The design of the HHSH campaign makes it relatively easy and economical for FSNE to
implement. With the campaign utilizing current FSNE staff, educators, and interns, there will be
no need to hire additional help, therefore saving money that would have otherwise been spent on
new hire salaries. Most of the required resources are already utilized by other FSNE programs
and initiatives making acquiring these resources easy and painless. The majority of social media
platforms allow users to create profiles and pages for free, allowing FSNE to create the campaign
page without spending any funds. By having the FSNE staff go out into the community to ask
for prize donations, FSNE will be forming valuable relationship with local businesses. These
businesses may be able to partner with FSNE on additional projects in the future.
Healthy Habits Start Here (HHSH) is specifically designed to improve the lifestyle habits
of school-age children by getting parents, teachers, and the community actively involved.
Research shows childrens attitudes and behaviors towards health and wellness typically reflect
the views of their parents. Getting parents involved in the creation of healthy habits is essential
for improving the health of the community. Reinforcing the principles of the FSNE school
programs at home increase the likelihood of children and families adopting healthier lifestyles.
The competitive nature of this campaign will motivate families to sign up and compete as
a team against other schools. The willingness of participants to try new things in an effort to win
the competition makes them more susceptible to incorporate these new behaviors and
experiences into their daily routines. Since the prizes are intended for the winning schools,
students and their families will have to work together and encourage one another to participate
each week. This sense of community comradery is the basis of the campaigns success.

SOCIAL MEDIA HEALTHY HABITS

References
Berger-Jenkins, E., Rausch, J., Ebiere, O., Tsao, E., Nieto, A., Lyda, E., Meyer, D., McCord, M.
(2014). Evaluation of a coordinated school-based obesity prevention program in a
hispanic community: Choosing healthy and active lifestyles for kids/healthy schools
healthy families. American Journal of Health Education. 45(5), 261-270.
Chan, C. L., Prelip, M., Erausquin, J. T., Slusser, W. (2012). Lessons learned from the
development and implementation of a parent nutrition education program with lowincome Latina mothers in an urban school district setting. American Journal of Health
Education. 43(4), 242-249.
Food Supplement Nutrition Education Program (FSNE). (n.d.). School community programs.
Retrieved March 2, 2015 from University of Maryland Extension:
http://extension.umd.edu/fsne/fsne-initiatives/school-community-programs
Middleton, G., Keegan, R., Henderson, H. (2012). A qualitative exploration of stakeholder
perspectives on a school-based multi-component health promotion programma. Journal
of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. 25, 547-556.
Rausch, J. C., Berger-Jenkins, E., Nieto, A.R., McCord, M, Meyer, D. (2015). Effect of a schoolbased intervention on parents nutrition and exercise knowledge, attitudes, and behavior.
American Journal of Health Education. 46, 33-39.

You might also like