Long-term Outcomes of the ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise & Nutrition Alternatives) Program for Female High School Athletes.

Adolescence and emerging adulthood are critical windows for establishing life-long behaviors. We assessed long-term outcomes of a prospective randomized harm reduction/health promotion program for female high school athletes. The intervention's immediate beneficial effects on diet pill use and unhealthy eating behaviors have been reported; however, tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use were not immediately altered (Elliot et al, 2004). One to three years following graduation, positive benefits in those domains became evident, and intervention students reported significantly less lifetime use of cigarettes, marijuana, and alcohol. Sport teams may be effective vehicles for gender-specific interventions to promote competency skills and deter harmful actions, and those benefits may manifest when acquired abilities are applied in new environments following high school graduation.

Definition and outcome of a curriculum to prevent disordered eating and body-shaping drug use.

Almost one half of male and female students participate in high school-sponsored athletics, and high school also is a time when classroom health promotion curricula are less effective. The Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids is a sport team-centered drug-use prevention program for male high school athletes, which has been shown to reduce alcohol and illicit drug use. Just as anabolic steroid use is associated with male athletes, female sport participants may be at a greater risk for disordered eating and body-shaping drug use. Extending sport team-centered programs to young women athletes required defining and ranking factors related to developing those harmful behaviors. Survey results from a cross-sectional cohort of female middle and high school student athletes were used to identify and prioritize potential curriculum components, including mood and self-esteem, norms of behavior, perceptions of healthy body weight, effects of media depictions of women, and societal pressures to be thin. The derived sport team-centered program was prospectively assessed among a second group of female student athletes from 18 high schools, randomized to receive the intervention or the usual care control condition. The Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives (ATHENA) intervention is a scripted, coach-facilitated, peer-led 8-session program, which was incorporated into a team's usual training activities. The ATHENA program significantly altered the targeted risk factors and reduced ongoing and new use of diet pills and body-shaping substances (amphetamines, anabolic steroids, and sport supplements). These findings illustrate the utility of a structured process to define curriculum content, and the program's positive results also confirm the sport team's potential as a vehicle to effectively deter health-harming behaviors.

Preventing substance use and disordered eating: initial outcomes of the ATHENA (athletes targeting healthy exercise and nutrition alternatives) program.

OBJECTIVES: To implement and to assess the efficacy of a school-based, sport team-centered program to prevent young female high school athletes' disordered eating and body-shaping drug use. DESIGN AND SETTING: Prospective controlled trial in 18 high schools, with balanced random assignment by school to the intervention and usual-care control conditions. PARTICIPANTS: We enrolled 928 students from 40 participating sport teams. Mean age was 15.4 years, 92.2% were white, and follow-up retention was 72%. INTERVENTION: The ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise and Nutrition Alternative) curriculum's 8 weekly 45-minute sessions were incorporated into a team's usual practice activities. Content was gender-specific, peer-led, and explicitly scripted. Topics included healthy sport nutrition, effective exercise training, drug use and other unhealthy behaviors' effects on sport performance, media images of females, and depression prevention. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: We assessed participants by confidential questionnaire prior to and following their sport season. We determined program effects using an analysis of covariance-based approach within the Generalized Estimating Equation framework. RESULTS: Experimental athletes reported significantly less ongoing and new use of diet pills and less new use of athletic-enhancing substances (amphetamines, anabolic steroids, and sport supplements) (P<.05 for each). Other health-harming actions also were reduced (less riding with an alcohol-consuming driver [P = .05], more seat belt use [P<.05], and less new sexual activity [P<.05]). The ATHENA athletes had coincident positive changes in strength-training self-efficacy (P<.005) and healthy eating behaviors (P<.001). Reductions occurred in intentions toward future use of diet pills (P<.05), vomiting to lose weight (P<.05), and use of tobacco (P<.05) and muscle-building supplements (P<.005). The program's curriculum components were altered appropriately (controlling mood [P<.005], refusal skills [P = .05], belief in the media [P<.005], and perceptions of closest friends' body-shaping drug use [P<.001]). CONCLUSIONS: Sport teams are effective natural vehicles for gender-specific, peer-led curricula to promote healthy lifestyles and to deter disordered eating, athletic-enhancing substance use, and other health-harming behaviors.