School Wellness Integration Targeting Child Health (SWITCH^®) is a school wellness implementation initiative focused on building capacity for schools to plan and coordinate wellness programming. Grounded in Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), the purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of the web-based, self-regulation system on physical activity (PA) behavior outcomes. At pre-test and post-test, students in SWITCH^® schools (n = 8) completed the online Youth Activity Profile (YAP) to assess PA and sedentary behavior (SB). Students (n = 513) were categorized into high or low self-monitoring groups (using a median split) based on their use of the web-based self-regulation platform. Linear mixed models were used to assess differences in moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and sedentary behavior, with school, classroom, student, time-by-school, and time-by-classroom random effects and main and interaction fixed effects for student self-monitoring, gender, and time. Significant self-monitoring-by-time interactions were observed for estimates of PA F(1, 477) = 5.55, p = 0.02 and SB F(1, 477) = 4.90, p = 0.03. Students in the high self-monitoring group had larger gains in PA per day and larger declines in hours per day of sedentary screen time behavior compared to students in the low self-monitoring group. These findings support the utility of web-based self-regulation for facilitating PA change in youth.

Poor dietary choices are a leading cause of preventable chronic disease. Consequently, improving dietary choices is a key public health goal. While several approaches are available to influence dietary choices, consumer education is likely a key to improving the diet. One approach to educating consumers is to provide grocery store tours where consumers are provided with nutrition education where purchasing decisions are often made. At this time, there has been limited research to show the effectiveness of this approach or to develop best practices. A possible barrier to innovation in this area concerns the difficulty to get access to grocery stores to conduct tours. Moreover, these barriers may also hamper research efforts to identify best practices. A possible alternative approach is to create virtual worlds where grocery store tours can be conducted remotely. This present manuscript describes an approach to developing virtual grocery stores as a method for providing nutrition education with a description of the design possibilities.

Face-to-face cooking programs can positively impact food choices, fruit and vegetable intake, and cooking self-efficacy; however, little is known about virtual cooking programs. We studied the perceived acceptability of the virtual SWITCH Cooking School (SCS). Four monthly cooking classes were offered for each participating school. Classes included nutrition education, food safety, and cooking demonstrations. Feedback was collected through post-class surveys and focus groups with parent/guardian and youth participants. Families valued the convenience of the virtual delivery and were interested in participating again. Future considerations for the SCS include incorporating additional variety of culinary skills and modifying registration methods.