Team KiPOW is a replicable, academic-community partnership which helps implement national diet and exercise policy in underfunded schools.

Team KiPOW (Kid Power!) was started in 2012 as an innovative collaboration between Children’s National Medical Center and the George Washington University School of Medicine to combat pediatric obesity and cardiometabolic dysregulation. We wanted to empower all children to make healthier choices and to do it in a practical, evidence-based way that worked.

The National School Lunch Act & the Free and Reduced Lunch Plan Expansion provide nutritionally balanced, low-cost, or free lunches to children each and every school day. 200 minutes of physical education are also required for every 10 days of school (20 min/day). Many states have minimum requirements for health education that must be met by schools.

The US Preventative Task Force shows that 26-hours of face-time with trusted mentors is required to make measurable and sustainable behavior change. This cannot be accomplished in a traditional 15-minute physician’s visit. Recognizing this, the government has drafted enlightened health policies that provide children with nutritious meals, health education requirements, and physical activity requirements. However, it is often difficult for schools — especially in low-resource environments where obesity is the most prevalent — to meet such requirements and children often do not want to eat the healthy food that they are not used to.

Reductions in modifiable lifestyle risk factors can reverse cardiometabolic risks and their comorbid conditions.

Our pilot study in DC led to positive health behavior outcomes and improved physiologic markers (height, weight, BMI, blood pressures, fitness testing). It also demonstrated that this type of program was feasible and sustainable in local schools, so we collaborated with the University of California, Irvine and piloted it in a completely different environment across the country: Orange County, California.

Once again, we had positive research outcomes and the program was feasible and sustainable.

We now want to disseminate this strategy for improving the health and academic outcomes of children around the country to effectively empower children to make healthier choices.

• American Academy of Pediatrics Anne E. Dyson Award for Child Advocacy 2016
• AAP Orange County Chapter’s Young Physician Community Engagement Award 2015
• AAP Orange County Chapter’s Young Physician Community Engagement Award 2016
• UCI Dorothy Waffarn Child Health Traineeship Research Award 2015
• UCI Dorothy Waffarn Child Health Traineeship Research Award 2015
• Medical Student Poster Presentation Award (2016 NEPO Building Healthy Communities Summit)
• U.S. Public Health Service Excellence in Public Health Award 2014