OrganWise Guys Incorporated

The OrganWise Guys have partnered with a variety of public and private entities to bring nutrition, physical activity, and other lifestyle behavior messages to people of all ages. These time-tested and evaluated materials have proven effective in helping individuals understand the importance of making healthy lifestyle choices and motivating them to make these changes in their own lives.

Situation

The current pattern of addressing childhood obesity is reactive. By the time children and young adults display risk factors for chronic diseases, they have already developed habits that support the continuation of these conditions. In addition, programs designed to bring awareness to healthy behaviors have fallen short in their ability to engage and transform young audiences into assuming ownership of their health.

Solution

The OrganWise Guys Incorporated has created a model program that addresses the risk factors for obesity by meeting children where they spend a majority of their day….in the classroom, and by making the academic day a forum through which to weave good nutrition and physical activity habits for a lifetime. Through innovative, evaluated, curriculum-linked materials, children learn that they are responsible for themselves via the choices they make. In addition, the program is designed to be a turn-key operation with a precise order of trainings and events to realize maximum effectiveness and efficiency and to allow for replication in a variety of settings (i.e., HeadStart, after-school programs, etc.).

This model is currently in its third year of a four-year intervention that is taking place in the Delta regions of Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. This program, called The Delta HOPE Tri-State Initiative (HOPE), is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and has brought the University Extension Services of all three states together as partners. The trained Extension Agents in each county, who are familiar to the local population, are responsible for delivering the programs, training the teachers and interfacing regularly with the school. The success of the program has attracted additional funders such as BlueCross Blue Shield of Louisiana (Smart Bodies) and BlueCross Blue Shield of Mississippi to provide funding to additional schools in their state. BlueCross and BlueShield of Texas will begin testing the model in their state in the fall of 2006. Of course, insuring a healthier population makes good business sense.

Better Health & Lower Costs

Recently, the Dell Foundation commissioned The Cooper Institute to evaluate over 300 childhood obesity projects around the country. They awarded a GOLD rating to HOPE. In addition, The OrganWise Guys programs recently won the Department of Health and Human Services 2005 Innovation in Prevention Award for a school-based setting.

Other states have already begun initiatives modeling this project. Some examples are:

• The Oliver Foundation is currently funding a $1.5 million initiative to model the HOPE project in the Fort Bend Independent School District (FBISD). Baylor College of Medicine researchers are conducting a study on this project called, “The Oliver Foundation Kid’s Team in Ft. Bend Independent School District: A longitudinal study of BMI trends among elementary school children in healthy school environments.”
• The Office of Early Childhood Development in Washington, D.C. is piloting the model in 24 early childhood centers. The Spanish translation of several of The Younger Years Books are being tested in this region as well. 
• In Florida, the model is being replicated in the Florida Healthier Options for Public School Children (HOPS) study sponsored by the Agaston Research Institute.
• The model is also being implemented in Pinellas County, Florida as part of the STEPS grant they received from the Center for Disease Control.