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A study published in BMC Medicine suggests that the Switch program promotes improved eating habits among children and encourages them to engage in less television and computer screen time, United Press International reports. The “Switch what You Do, View and Chew” program targets these behaviors and aims to increase physical activity in communities and schools and among families. The community component uses paid advertising, such as billboards, and unpaid advertising, such as letters to the editors of print publications, to increase awareness of the importance of maintaining healthy lifestyles. The school component provides teachers with resources to integrate the program’s concepts into the school day. The family component provides participating families with monthly information packets that include tools to promote healthy behavior changes. To evaluate the efficacy of the program, an Iowa State University professor worked with researchers to analyze the intervention in a group of more than 1,000 children and parents from 10 schools in two states. Between 23 percent and 62 percent of participants reported positive changes in health behaviors following the intervention. Specifically, researchers observed a significant difference in parent-reported screen time among the group, changes that were maintained at six months post-intervention. The intervention group also recorded a significant increase in parent-reported fruit and vegetable consumption, while child-reported fruit and vegetable consumption “was marginally significant.” No significant effects were observed in pedometer measures of physical activity or body mass index in the experimental group. Based on the data, the researchers conclude that the Switch program “offers promise for use in youth obesity prevention.” (UPI, 9/25/09; Gentile et al., BMC Medicine, 9/18/09).