California Project LEAN (CPL)

CPL has an infrastructure of ten regional offices that work closely with local collaboratives. CPL's statewide partners include health, university, and non-profit representatives who serve in an advisory capacity. The project works with these state and local physical activity and nutrition leaders to educate communities throughout California, through various projects (Food on the Run, School Board Nutrition Policy Project, the California Bone Health Campaign for Low-Income Latino Mothers) and technical assistance (Healthy Eating, Active Communities, sponsored by the California Endowment and Local School Wellness Policies, mandated by the federal government).

A key thread running through CPL's work is the Spectrum of Prevention model (Cohen, L., & Swift, S., 1999) which describes sex levels of prevention activities:

1. Strengthening individual knowledge and skills by, for example, providing social support for family and peers
2. Promoting community education by refining media approaches to physical activity promotion in diverse populations
3. Educating providers, for example, by developing the skills of community residents from low-income communities
4. Fostering coalitions and networks, especially at the local level
5. Changing organisational practices through such actions as training of community-based organisations to incorporate physical activity and good nutrition into programming
6. Policies that support prevention through advocacy to enact policies at the state and local level that promote positive physical environments.

Click here to learn more about the communication strategies associated with this model.

To cite one example of this model in practice, CPL's Food on the Run project involved 28 low-income high schools in 20 counties in efforts to educate teens, parents, community members, and local policy makers on the importance of healthy eating and physical activity, and to engage them in developing supportive policy solutions. The project used a social marketing approach based on formative research methods (e.g., literature and commercial market data reviews, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews). Food on the Run trained student advocates to conduct research, set goals, and formulate policy solutions. To support these young advocates, resources were developed and offered in English and Spanish; see, for instance, Playing The Policy Game, a toolkit including a collection of activities and success stories of California teens making nutrition and physical activity policy changes in their communities. A dedicated teen website was also created to assist teens in the advocacy process. As a result, students helped release the California High School Fast Food Survey, which was designed to reframe the issue from the behaviour of the adolescents for purchasing fast foods at school to the public policy issue of providing unhealthy foods on high school campuses.

Health, Nutrition, Youth.

As a result of CPL's Food on the Run programme, statistically significant increases were made in the availability of healthy food and physical activity options at participating schools (e.g., adding salad bars and convincing school districts to switch from high-fat to low-fat milk) (Takada, E., 2000). CPL claims that the 2000 California High School Fast Food report helped launch new California legislation requiring more stringent nutritional standards in California elementary, middle, and high schools.

To read about additional CPL programming initiatives, as well as to access a resource library and a number of advocacy tools and resources for youth and parents, visit the CPL website.