Scales, yogurt and music - just some of the tools Nursing graduate students are using to gather research and to prevent obesity and diabetes in children.
The Nursing students will meet in four sessions over two weeks and assess up to 80 elementary-school-age children in the Sayre Beacon After School Program.
The 13 Penn nurse practitioners, who are enrolled in Nursing 723: Nursing of Children Clinical II, are also working with 20 Sayre high-school sophomores, juniors and seniors who help them take measurements and interact with the children.
Project supervisor and Nursing professor Terri Lipman said the project, which is in its third year and funded by the Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships, came out of her own research in pediatrics.
Thew Sayre and Penn students work in stations, the first of which involves gathering basic measurements - such as weight, height and waist circumference - of the children. They will also check for acanthosis nigricans, a darkening of the skin often associated with obesity and diabetes.
In the second section, the children are taught about proper nutrition and get the chance to make their own yogurt parfaits. A knowledge test is administered before and after to assess impact, Lisa Cantore, a nurse practitioner student, said.
Cantore added that the students encourage the kids to drink more water and cut back on fast food by sending feedback directly to their parents with the hope that they will buy healthier foods for the home.
Nursing graduate student Cynthia Paidipati added that the kids were "really energetic and excited to do this," a favorable observation which she said makes her optimistic that if more food options were available at home and school, kids would naturally choose the healthier options after interventions like these.
Finally, in the third station, dancers from The Rebecca Davis Dance Company teach the children dance aerobics and fun ways to burn energy, while the Penn and high school students take vitals such as heart rate before, during and after exercise to determine general health levels.
The project aims to find "different and creative ways" to interact with kids positively, said Cantore.
Director of the Sayre-Penn Health Promotion Program Scott Baier emphasized the multiple goals of the project, from preventative health in children to research opportunities for the Sayre high schoolers related to medical professions through a "mentorship-type interaction," he said.
He added that another major goal is to collect data to see how the various variables of body measurements, nutrition knowledge and fitness level correlate with diabetes prevalence. The student nurses and Sayre high school students will present the results at a national pediatric conference in Las Vegas later this year.
Sayre high school student Vanessa Fuller said she learned how to properly use measuring equipment, calculate body mass index and chart growth curves from Penn Nursing students.
Nursing graduates will return to Sayre tomorrow and Thursday of this week to wrap up the project.
