CFK reports from: The New Normal? What Girls Say About Healthy Living
Event: Release of research report; panel discussion
Organized by: Girl Scout Research Institute
Where/When: National Press Club, Washington DC, Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Report by: Susan Phillips

This latest report by the research arm of the Girls Scouts of the U.S.A. takes a look at the attitudes of girls aged 8 to 17 towards healthy living, weight, body image and exercise. It's based on focus group interviews in four communities, an online survey of more than 2,000 girls and their mothers, and a separate survey of 400 African American, Latina and Asian girls.

The goal of the research, according to Kathy Cloninger, chief executive officer of the Girl Scouts organization, was to bring "the girl voice" to the fore in discussions of how to address the problem of obesity in girls and young women. Cloninger noted that the Girl Scouts have always promoted healthy, active living for girls—the first troop, founded in 1912, taught girls to play basketball, nearly unheard of at that time.

Because the Girl Scouts are more about action than research, Cloninger said, the results are being used to encourage girl scouts nationwide to take action—specifically, the national organization is urging troops to work at the local level to help schools develop the new "wellness policies" that are required to be in place for the 2006-2007 school year under the federal school lunch program.

Lead researcher Judy Schoenberg said that the surveys showed that girls think about health, fitness and weight in ways that have as much to do with their social relationships and self-image than any information they might have about the benefits of exercise and good eating habits. As a result, said Schoenberg, "efforts that focus solely on nutrition and physical activity may be missing the mark for many girls."

Girls, said Schoenberg, want above all to be "normal," and will reject any effort to make them behave in ways they see as weird or extreme—which might include daily vigorous exercise, or deciding not to snack, to swear off junk food, etc.

Schoenberg also noted that "Girls talked about health in a more holistic way than adults," including personal hygiene, attention to physical appearance, good relationships with friends and family as part of good health. Girls also saw health in terms of abstaining from bad things—not drinking, smoking or doing drugs, for instance—rather than in terms of engaging actively in healthy behaviors and activities.

The girls in the survey identified some key barriers to healthier living: lack of healthy eating options at school; stress; the fact that few schools require daily PE and that many PE classes were described by the girls as boring and badly taught. They said that their parents were powerful influences on their attitudes and behavior, both for good and bad.

The key points she took away from her research, said Schoenberg, was that girls need to see the social relevance of healthy behavior before they will be motivated to try it. "They love peer-to-peer programs," said Schoenberg. "Girls love to help other girls, they are all budding social workers." Also, she said, schools and communities need to offer "more opportunities for informal, noncompetitive physical activity" and demonstrate the positive outcomes of good habits—such as reminding girls that kids who eat breakfast do better on tests and schoolwork.

Dr. Lilian Cheung of the Harvard School of Public Health, who was an advisor on the study, said the results raised two issues for her. First, the fact that so many girls have a false perception of their own weight is a public health challenge. "How do we try to prevent overweight in a way that does not make girls too concerned about their weight?" asked Cheung. (One in three girls in the survey had a distorted idea about her own weight, with 45 percent of the overweight girls seeing themselves as normal, and 15 percent of the normal weight girls seeing themselves as overweight.)

She said that a program designed for middle schools, called Planet Health [1], had good results and could be a model. Second, asked Cheung, "How do we get people from knowing to doing?"

More information is available from Girl Scouts USA [2].