• Press Release

Preschoolers Can Learn Lasting Heart-Healthy Lessons from Sesame Street

Research team led by Dr. Valentin Fuster, Director of Mount Sinai Heart at The Mount Sinai Hospital, present promising three-year follow-up study results at AHA Scientific Sessions 2013.

  • (November 18, 2013)

Preschoolers can learn about healthy eating and exercise through Sesame Street.

In a study presented on November 18 at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2013, preschoolers in Bogotá, Colombia participating in a structured curriculum that used Sesame Street's Healthy Habits for Life materials improved their knowledge, attitudes and habits related to a heart-healthy lifestyle. Also, the percentage of children at a healthy weight improved by 13 percent.

In 2006, Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, the study's principal investigator and Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief at The Mount Sinai Hospital, partnered with Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, to develop this campaign to promote cardiovascular health education in the developing countries. Colombia was selected as the pilot.

In a five-month school based intervention, Sesame Street characters introduced heart-healthy ideas and actions to three- to five-year-olds and their parents in 14 preschools in underprivileged neighborhoods in Bogotá. Topics included:

  • Loving and caring for your body;
  • Eating a variety of foods, with a rainbow of colorful fruits and vegetables as “everyday foods” and other foods (such as cookies) as “sometime” foods;
  • Physical activity as a way to feel great and play with your friends, with opportunities for exercise in many settings.

Three years after the intervention, researchers retested 598 children and 475 parents:

  • Compared to their scores prior to the program, the children's knowledge improved 15 percent, attitudes 51 percent, and heart-healthy habits 27 percent.
  • The percentage of children at a healthy weight rose from 62 percent to 75 percent.
  • Parents' increased knowledge and attitudes about heart-healthy behavior was smaller, but significant.

''As a result of our successful pilot intervention in Colombia, the program has also been implemented in Spain, where we have expanded our reach to 20,000 more children,” says Dr. Fuster. ''Additional countries are now joining in the implementation of this vital childhood intervention allowing for increased education about the benefits of a heart-healthy lifestyle to better protect our world's tiniest hearts.”

''Cardiovascular health promotion should be started as early as possible and be integrated into all aspects of a child's life, including family and school,” says Jaime Céspedes, MD, study co-author and director of the Pediatric Hospital at the Cardioinfantil Foundation Institute of Cardiology in Bogotá, Colombia, who presented the study's findings at the AHA Scientific Sessions 2013.

In addition, Colombia researchers are developing an intervention targeted at children in rural preschools and another aimed at those in the elementary grades.

Study co-authors are German Dario Briceño, MD, MSc; Michael E. Farkouh, MD, MSc; Rajesh Vedanthan, MD, MPH; Jorge Baxter, MA; Martha Leal, MD, MSc; Paolo Boffetta, MD, PhD; Marilyn Hunn, BS; and Rodolfo Dennis, MD, MSc.

The Santo Domingo Foundation funded the study.

This study was presented as Late-Breaking Clinical Trial (Abstract 19618): Promotion of Cardiovascular Health in Preschool Children: 36-month Cohort Follow-up.

About the Mount Sinai Health System

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.

Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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