Over the past 30 years, obesity has increased rapidly as an epidemic and major
public health concern in the United Stated, particularly among Native American children
and adolescents. Native American adolescents have the highest prevalence rates of
obesity of all ethnic groups in the United States. Although there has been an increasing
effort to develop and evaluate obesity prevention programs for children and adolescents,
very little attention has been devoted to understanding culturally effective approaches for
ethnic populations. There is a significant gap in the research literature regarding effective
obesity intervention and prevention studies for Native American children and
adolescents.
The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of a culturally based talking
circle approach, KCTC-O, for the prevention of obesity among early adolescent Native
American (Keetoowah-Cherokee) and to examine the relationships between Cherokee self-reliance; perceived stress levels; and obesity knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. A
7-week intervention in which a 2-condition quasi-experimental design was implemented
to compare the KCTC-O experimental condition with a standard school health education
(SE) control condition on three outcome variables (Cherokee self-reliance; perceived
stress levels; and obesity knowledge, attitudes, and behavior at pre- and post-intervention.
A total sample of 100 participants were recruited for this study, 50 participants per
condition. The participants were distributed almost evenly in terms of gender: 55 females
compared to 45 males for both groups combined. Participants ranged in ages from 10 to
13, with a mean age of 11.5 years of age, and ranged in grades from 4 through 7, with
Grade 6 being the most frequently reported grade in school. The results of this study
revealed the effectiveness of the KCTC-O condition was not significantly greater than the
SE condition. However, although not statistically significant, the results of this study
provided some evidence that a culturally based intervention was slightly more effective
for the prevention of obesity than a non-culturally based intervention for Native
American early adolescents. This study helps to validate the need for more robust obesity
prevention programs from a cultural perspective among Native American early
adolescents. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_33687 |
| Contributors | Kelley, Melessa N. (author), Lowe, John (Thesis advisor), Florida Atlantic University (Degree grantor), Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing |
| Publisher | Florida Atlantic University |
| Source Sets | Florida Atlantic University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 165 p., application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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