Background : Currently there is a health crisis facing our country’s youth. Poor health habits in diet and exercise are contributing to a rising trend in obesity that increases the risk for cardiovascular disease and threatens to seriously shorten life expectancy. Moreover, there is growing evidence that the burden of disease falls disproportionately on both minorities and the economically poor. Health Advocacy Program aims to address this growing problem by empowering youth with the knowledge and skills to be proactive about their health through good nutrition and physical exercise. Project: We have been developing HAP since the Spring of 2007 and began piloting the curriculum this past fall. With the help of Citizen Schools, which operates a national network of after school apprenticeships, HAP teaches two 10-week sessions per school year (2 hours per week), targeting 25-30 students at McCormack Middle School in Dorchester, MA a low-income neighborhood in Boston. Out of 700 students, over 90% are minority students and over 85% are eligible for either free or reduced-priced lunch, indicating that there is great potential to develop habits that can build a healthier generation. Outcomes and results of the project in the targeted community: Each semester, Health Advocacy Program makes it a goal to develop concrete hands-on projects to engage the students in actively learning about nutrition and physical fitness. In the fall semester, a group of 12 students brainstormed ways to strengthen their school’s health education efforts. They interviewed the school nurse and principal, put together a petition to replenish the soap and paper towels in the bathrooms, presented their ideas for substituting lunch menu items with healthier alternatives, put up flyers around the school to remind students and staff about good hygiene, and wrote a newsletter on healthy habits that was distributed to their peers. In addition, the students put together a film that documented this whole process and revealed what they have learned. Currently this spring, a group of 15 students is putting together a Healthy Lifestyle Magazine with recipes and exercises that they have made themselves. Each week, half the class is dedicated to an Iron Chef competition with a different theme (i.e. smoothies, wraps, guacamole-salsa, pita pizza and trail mix). The students break up into three teams, come up with a recipe based on the ingredients the teachers bring and then the make the item accordingly. The team with the healthiest and tastiest recipe wins and gets to have their recipe put into the Healthy Lifestyle Magazine. Thus, by the end of the semester, the students will each have a book of easy, fun recipes that they can share with their friends and families at home to promote, fresh healthy diets. In addition, students engage in discussion with guest speakers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard College Food Literacy Project. In the remaining half of the semester the students will also participate in a yoga class to learn about exercise and stress management and will take a field trip to the local grocery store to learn how to plan and budget while shopping. Challenges and ways of working: Teaching a group of middle school students after a long day of classes is not an easy task. Many of the students are tired and have been up since 6:00 am and their attention span is at its minimum. We have recognized this concern however, and have used it to make our program strong. Good food is often what will keep kids energized so making snacks and adding some competition through the Iron Chef activity achieves just that, while also providing an excellent avenue to teach about healthy diets. Moreover, the fact that the students have to work together in small teams forces them to learn how to cooperate and how to make their own recipes by thinking through proportions of ingredients. Having a final Healthy Lifestyle Magazine by the end of the semester is a concrete way for the students to take ownership of what they have learned and is an easy means of sharing their knowledge with family and friends. Thus, HAP is a very innovative and unique way of achieving health literacy in this community. There is a lot of scope and potential for HAP to scale up elsewhere. We are planninng to expand the curriculum to other schools and communities. This spring and summer we are planning to produce a healthy lifestyle magazine, create and maintain a website for the project and work with other communities to expand the project.