Know Your Body

Know Your Body (KYB), initially developed in the 1970s by the American Health Foundation, is a comprehensive school health promotion program for students in kindergarten through ninth grade. KYB is designed to encourage positive health behavior and discourage or interrupt behavioral patterns that are linked to illness, injury, disability, or death. This skills-based comprehensive health education curriculum covers health topics such as nutrition, exercise, safety, disease prevention, prevention of cigarette smoking, consumer health issues, dental care, HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, and violence prevention, as well as citizenship topics.

Instruction is organized around five "core skills"--self-esteem, decision-making, communication, goal setting, and stress management--with emphasis on critical thinking about advertising and other influences on health decisions. The curriculum, guided by social learning theory, includes instructional strategies such as behavioral contracting, self-monitoring through student journals, and frequent projects in every grade that promote advocacy on health-related issues. This schoolwide program encourages family involvement by sending letters home for parents with every module and by including activities designed to promote interaction with parents. The program also promotes community involvement by inviting community members to speak and assigning projects that encourage students to interact with community members. The posters, song tapes, and student activity books have been translated into seven languages.

The goal of KYB is to teach students the necessary knowledge, attitudes, skills, and experience to practice positive health behaviors and reduce their risk of future illness.

Studies suggest that the program had a favorable impact on many risk factors, such as systolic and diastolic pressures, HDL cholesterol, ratio of total to HDL cholesterol, fitness (postexercise pulse recovery rate), and smoking.

Six published studies involving white, African-American, and Latino students from mixed socioeconomic populations in grades 1-9 have evaluated Know Your Body. After 2 years of intervention, results suggest that the program had a favorable impact on the following risk factors: systolic and diastolic pressures, HDL cholesterol, ratio of total to HDL cholesterol, fitness (postexercise pulse recovery rate), and smoking. Blood pressure reduction was associated with decreased weight and improved fitness, and increased HDL cholesterol was associated with decreased weight. These results are consistent with other evaluations of the Know Your Body program, suggesting that the program may be effective in reducing chronic disease risk in diverse school populations. Limitations of note were attrition, decay of effects between the 3- and 5-year follow-ups, and fidelity to program implementation. Additional research is needed to determine the effect of the program on a broader range of outcomes, to what degree increasing the dosage produces larger and more enduring treatment effects, and the relative impact of the various components that make up the program.