Researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital have developed a new health-improvement program shown to have positive effects on cholesterol levels, diabetes risk and depression symptoms in obese African-American girls.

A group of 261 8- to 10-year-old girls was recruited from Oakland, Calif., all of whom self-reported as African-Americans and were obese according to their body mass index (BMI). They were randomly divided into two groups. The experimental group received daily dance classes at Oakland community centers and in-home education programs on reducing television time, while the control group got a mail-out health education program. The goal was to reduce BMI and obesity among the girls.

Although this specific goal was not met, the benefits of the study relating to cholesterol levels, diabetes and depression seem promising, especially considering the initial health of the participants — for example, one in five had high cholesterol at the beginning of the study.

“Reducing depression really helped because many of them do live in pretty rough circumstances in Oakland, so to make them feel better about themselves, that’s a really good step in the right direction,” said co-author Donna Matheson, senior research scholar at the Stanford Prevention Research Center.

Many study participants came from families of low socioeconomic status, which created several challenges for the researchers.

“Just getting the kids to the dance program is what really traumatized us,” Matheson said. “They don’t have moms that are going to pick them up after school and drive them all over.” Researchers finally combated the issue by buying a van and transporting the girls themselves.

Another obstacle faced was the availability and usability of various community centers — for example, a shooting occurred outside one of the centers — which caused the daily dance classes to move locations several times.

According to a press release for the study, the dance programs were “culturally relevant to the children participating.”

“They were learning about the history of dance and the important contributions traditional African dance has made to contemporary hip-hop dance,” said lead author Thomas Robinson in the press release.

The dancers put on several performances for their parents and friends.

“To see the number of parents that would come out and watch their kids perform, that was really heartening,” Matheson said. “That’s a really special moment…I think they didn’t have it as often as many of the upper SES [socioeconomic status] communities probably do. I think that brought real pride in what these kids were doing.”

According to co-author Darrell Wilson, professor of pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, future studies could potentially provide clues as to how these programs could be implemented effectively.

“The goal is to find likely combinations of interventions that can keep children’s and adolescents’ weights under control so we can avoid some of the complications that are associated with obesity, specifically in young adults,” Wilson said.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Stanford Prevention Research Center and Department of General Pediatrics, was conducted over two years. Funding came from the National Institutes of Health as well as the National Institutes of Heart, Lung and Blood.

“The next step in the research is to translate the connection between fun and health promotion to many other settings,” said a press release for the study. “Robinson’s team is now evaluating a variety of ‘stealth interventions’ for weight-gain prevention and control: ways to tap people’s intrinsic motivations to engage in behaviors that also happen to be healthy.”

“You always learn a lot of stuff about the community,” said Matheson. “The good part is the parents really care…they feel proud of their kids. The hard part is the time and the energy it takes to get them there is sometimes overwhelming.”