Youth Activism against Obesity - New Technology and Youth Participatory Evaluation

Background: Youth Activism Against Obesity (YAAO) addresses the question of how to reach a new generation of internet- and technology-sophisticated youth to empower them to live an active lifestyle free of obesity.  YAAO is a community-based collaborative program targeting low-income Latino and African American youth in Los Angeles County and beyond through an online social networking site: www.WereFEDup.com.  YAAO's goal is to decrease the obesity rate in these communities through an evidence-based, social marketing plan utilizing computer social networking and peer leadership.  YAAO taps the strength of youth peer-to-peer education models to increase awareness of obesity and its risks, to increase awareness of positive lifestyle changes that combat obesity, and to invoke behavior change. This is a collaborative, participatory program with heavy youth involvement.  Youth participate in all phases of the program, from platform design, to content creation to evaluation.

Program background: YAAO youth developed their online social network on the NING platform in partnership with both a private commercial media company and community-based organizations doing work around obesity.  The LA County Department of Public Health manages the program and provides oversight.

www.WereFedUP.com has (as of this moment) almost three thousands members both between the NING site and the branched marketing pages on FaceBook, MySpace and Twitter.  The overall marketing objective of the campaign focuses on shifting students’ consciousness and understanding of food marketing, eating choices, lifestyle habits, and environmental influences to inspire personal change for the better and to compel others to follow their lead via a self-discovery process.   Engaging youth on the site uses social marketing methodology that includes branding, incentivizing, and promoting their local efforts through the online medium.

Evaluation Methods and Results: YAAO’s evaluation uses a participatory paradigm.  Youth sit at the table with other program stakeholders to plan and implement the program’s evaluation.  The evaluation teams designed the program’s logic model, the pre/post survey, and the evaluation questions.  Youth collected data at media events, and developed a PhotoVoice rubric to judge entries in their photo contest.  Youth will interview each other to attain qualitative content not captured on surveys.  The intent behind this choice of engagement is to create a more contextually valid evaluation using input from those most knowledgeable, and to empower youth leaders to take ownership of the program.  In Youth Participatory Evaluation, youth are seen as valuable program stakeholders.  They are experts at being youth and their contribution is critical to creating a contextually grounded evaluation.  Youth development and transformation is embedded in all the activity.

Conclusions: These two components of YAAO, youth participation in developing and evaluating a new technological approach to obesity prevention makes YAAO a unique intervention that has the potential to reach a broad audience of youth both locally and around the world. 

Implications for research and/or practice: This paper presentation will be interesting to practitioners engaging in youth evaluation and designing innovations that reach the internet-savvy youth beyond their immediate borders.