The FAN program plan: Creating a healthy church environment for physical activity and healthy eating.

Dialogues Health

Prevention Research Center, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, United States of America.

Published: December 2022

Background: Faith, Activity, & Nutrition (FAN) helps churches create a healthier environment for physical activity (PA) and healthy eating (HE) through policy, systems, and environmental changes.

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to describe the implementation, evaluation, and revision of the FAN Program Plan across a two-phase study to help churches create guidelines and policies for PA and HE.

Methods: In Phase 1, church committees attended trainings led by Community Health Advisors (CHA) where they assessed current practices to PA and HE. Committees used the FAN Program Plan to outline an implementation plan to increase opportunities, programs, messages, pastor support, and guidelines/practices for PA and HE. FAN Program Plans were submitted to the research team for review. Findings from Phase 1 plans directed revisions in program materials for Phase 2, where the submission and review processes were repeated.

Results: Review of Phase 1 FAN Program Plans (53/54 churches submitted a Program Plan) revealed that church committees confused guidelines/practices with programs and had trouble differentiating programs for PA and HE from providing opportunities (i.e., building PA/HE into existing events). The CHA training, FAN church committee training, FAN Program Plan, and other documents were revised to use the term "guidelines (policies)" instead of "guidelines/practices." In addition, CHAs facilitated a training section on guidelines (policies) to committees, and a guidelines (policies) section was added in the FAN Program Plan and other program documents. These changes in Phase 2 were helpful for differentiating policies from programs and programs from opportunities in FAN Program Plans (53/115 churches submitted a Program Plan), although some confusion remained.

Conclusions: This study underscored challenges churches may have in setting policies for PA and HE and discusses strategies to address these challenges in future faith-based initiatives.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10953865PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dialog.2022.100019DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

fan program
32
program plan
28
guidelines policies
12
program plans
12
program
11
fan
10
plan
8
environment physical
8
physical activity
8
activity healthy
8

Similar Publications

Microgravity-induced cardiac remodeling and dysfunction present significant challenges to long-term spaceflight, highlighting the urgent need to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms and develop precise countermeasures. Previous studies have outlined the important role of miRNAs in cardiovascular disease progression, with miR-199a-3p playing a crucial role in myocardial injury repair and the maintenance of cardiac function. However, the specific role and expression pattern of miR-199a-3p in microgravity-induced cardiac remodeling remain unclear.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) stands as one of the most prevalent and severe causes of heart failure. Inflammation plays a pivotal role throughout the progression of DCM to heart failure, while age acts as a natural predisposing factor for all cardiovascular diseases. These two factors often interact, contributing to cardiac fibrosis, which is both a common manifestation and a pathogenic driver of adverse remodeling in DCM-induced heart failure.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A Global Relationship Between Genome Size and Encoded Carbon Metabolic Strategies of Soil Bacteria.

Ecol Lett

January 2025

State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, Shanxi Key Laboratory of Agricultural and Environmental Microbiology, College of Life Sciences, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, China.

Microbial traits are critical for carbon sequestration and degradation in terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, our understanding of the relationship between carbon metabolic strategies and genomic traits like genome size remains limited. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a global-scale meta-analysis of 2650 genomes, integrated whole-genome sequencing data, and performed a continental-scale metagenomic field study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Numerous studies have demonstrated limited survival benefits of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) alone in the treatment of intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) beyond up-to-seven criteria. The advent of immunotherapy, particularly immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), has opened new avenues for HCC treatment. However, TACE combined with ICIs has not been investigated for patients with intermediate-stage HCC beyond the up-to-seven criteria.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Evidence suggests that approximately 63.0%-84.2% of stroke survivors have hypertension, yet there is currently no stroke prediction tool specifically designed for individuals with hypertension.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!