From Penn State: School-based obesity prevention programs

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21987475

Health Educ Res. 2011 Oct 10. [Epub ahead of print]
Translating evidence based violence and drug use prevention to obesity prevention: development and construction of the Pathways program.
Sakuma KL, Riggs NR, Pentz MA.
Source
1Prevention Research Center, College of Health.uman Development, The Pennsylvania State University, 402 Marion Place, University Park, PA 16802, USA.

Abstract
Effective school-based obesity prevention programs are needed to prevent and reduce the growing obesity risk among youth. Utilizing the evidence-rich areas of violence and substance use prevention, translation science may provide an efficient means for developing curricula across multiple health behaviors. This paper introduces Pathways to Health, a school-based obesity prevention program that was developed by translating from evidence-based violence and drug use prevention programs, Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies and the Midwestern Prevention Project STAR (STAR). We illustrate how a hypothesized underlying behavior change mechanism in two domains of risk behavior, violence and substance use, can be applied to obesity prevention. A 4-step translational process is provided and may be relevant for use in developing other curricula to address multiple health risk behaviors. Practical application and decision points are also provided.