BACKGROUND: School efforts to promote health among students are more successful when families and community members are involved. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review to summarize and categorize family and community engagement strategies used in US school and out-of-school time (OST) interventions to address physical activity (PA) and nutrition in kindergarten through 12th grade students. RESULTS: The National Network of Partnership Schools' Six Keys to Success framework was useful in organizing the types of family and community engagement strategies used in included interventions. Many interventions used multiple family and community engagement strategies, with the most common being communicating with families and community members; providing support or education to families; and collaborations among school/OST program and community to support students and their families. CONCLUSIONS: This review identified six common family and community engagement strategies used in school and OST interventions for PA and nutrition. Including family and community engagement strategies in school and OST interventions could play an important role in maximizing support, resources, and expertise to promote healthy behaviors among all students.

Purpose: Fitness education is essential for children's health, but determining the effectiveness of instruction related to health-related fitness is difficult. The present study developed and confirmed the validity of a 20-item scale, adapted from the School Health Index (Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014), to evaluate the success of fitness education portion of the Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP) across a sample of 785 teachers. Method: The initial subset (n = 373) represented 353 schools and was used for conducting an exploratory factor analysis. The second subset (n = 412) representing 404 schools, was used to conduct the confirmatory factor analysis. Teachers self-assessed their perceived degree of implementation of fitness education (full, partial, under development, not in place) within their school (i.e., teachers helped students set fitness goals). Results: An initial exploratory factor analysis revealed that the Fitness Education Index questions clustered into six factors. A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis conducted using Mplus concluded the six-factor solution was a good fit (CFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.88, RMSEA = 0.08, SRMR = 0.06). Conclusion: This scale is a valid measure of a school's readiness to initiate and track progress toward the full implementation of fitness education.

Obesity and lack of physical activity among children and adolescents are public health problems in the United States. This Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP) evaluation measured program implementation in 13 middle schools and its effect on physical education practices, student fitness knowledge, and student physical activity and fitness levels. PYFP, a free program with the potential to positively affect student health and fitness outcomes, was designed to improve fitness education practices that are easily integrated into existing physical education programs. We used a 2-group (13 PYFP and 13 comparison schools) quasi-experimental design to collect FitnessGram assessments, accelerometry data, and surveys of students, physical education teachers, and administrators. Although the program was positively associated with student cardiovascular endurance and physical activity gains during the semester, schools underused professional development courses and fitness recognition resources.

We provide an overview of the comprehensive evaluation of State Public Health Actions to Prevent and Control Diabetes, Heart Disease, Obesity and Associated Risk Factors and Promote School Health (State Public Health Actions). State Public Health Actions is a program funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to support the statewide implementation of cross-cutting approaches to promote health and prevent and control chronic diseases. The evaluation addresses the relevance, quality, and impact of the program by using 4 components: a national evaluation, performance measures, state evaluations, and evaluation technical assistance to states. Challenges of the evaluation included assessing the extent to which the program contributed to changes in the outcomes of interest and the variability in the states' capacity to conduct evaluations and track performance measures. Given the investment in implementing collaborative approaches at both the state and national level, achieving meaningful findings from the evaluation is critical.