April 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 47

Barkin and her colleagues discovered that changing a sedentary, " obesogenic " culture requires a firm commitment to standards. " We found, "
she says, " that by setting standards
for what food could be served and
encouraging structured play as part
of afterschool programming, we
could change youth habits. " In one
of the Collaborative's physical activity projects, for example, Barkin and
her team were able to demonstrate
that children in structured afterschool
play activities were more likely to get
an additional 20 minutes of moderate
to vigorous physical activity each day.
" And that, " she emphasizes, " can
translate into real health benefits. "

That alliance-driven movement has
now found its most influential public
consensus-builder and champion so
far - First Lady Michelle Obama.

Standards in Action
Walsh's original notion of a simple
one-snack-a-week object lesson evolved
into a system of practical, measurable
health standards. And Barkin's vision
of an aligned, empirically based community health mission matured into
a citywide program/research experiment reaching 1,000 families.
While Knoxville's and Nashville's
experiences entailed local initiatives
and partnerships, a growing national
cooperative effort led by out-of-schooltime (OST) public health experts is introducing tested " plug-and-play " standards. And the champions of those
new standards are enlisting technical
support from specialists while garnering an expanding menu of private and
public funding sources.
Increasingly, communities like
Nashville and Knoxville will be able
to enrich kids' afterschool hours with
a full arsenal of resources, tools and
guidance from national - not just
local - leadership. The alliances at
the vanguard of the national OST
movement embrace not only park
and rec agencies, but also such august
nongovernmental organizations as
BGCA and the YMCA of the USA.

Out-of-School Time:
The National Story
One of the organizations at the heart
of the healthy OST movement is the
Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a
joint effort of the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation
that works alongside community-based
organizations to implement healthy
standards in the fight against childhood
obesity. Anne Ferree, who leads the organization's healthy OST efforts, offers
a unique, " wide-angle " perspective on
an issue that most youth advocates get
to see only through a local lens.
Before- and afterschool-time standards, Ferree recounts, evolved out of
an initial scrutiny between 2005 and
2008 on children's time in school. As
school data accumulated, researchers' attention began slowly to shift to
how kids were spending their time
before and after school - especially
their time at community-based sites
like parks and recreation community
centers, YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs,
and 4H clubs. In 2009, the movement
got its organizational impetus through
a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
(RWJF) grant, which resulted in the
formation of the Healthy Out-of-

Implementing
HEPA Standards
Will Help Millions
of Children
Specifically, over the next five years,
the partnering organizations will:
t Encourage clubs and sites to join
in the national effort to create
healthier environments for children in out-of-school-time programs.
t BGCA will encourage 3,400 Boys
& Girls Clubs nationwide to join in
the national effort to create healthier environments for children in
out-of-school-time programs.
t NRPA will encourage 2,000 park
and recreation sites to join the
national effort to create healthier
environments for children in outof-school-time programs.
t Each club or site will be encouraged to join the Alliance for a
Healthier Generation's Healthy
Out-of-School Time program
through the electronic submission
of a Healthy Out-of-School Time
Inventory, which is built upon the
National AfterSchool Association
Standards for Healthy Eating and
Physical Activity and USDA Smart
Snacks in School Standards.
t Encourage clubs and sites to adopt
healthy eating and physical activity standards.

W W W. N R PA . O R G | A P R I L 2 0 1 4 |

Parks & Recreation

April 2014 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2014 - Parks & Recreation