Participants
Participants were 139 urban Native American youth, predominately from Ojibwe and Lakota tribes, attending an after school program in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The goal of the program was to promote cultural identity, academic success, physical well being, and chemical dependency awareness to Native American youth ages 5 to 18 years old. For this study, surveys were self-administered only to youth 9 to 18 years. This sample included 58 boys (mean age: 12.5 + 2.6 yrs) and 81 girls (mean age: 12.4 + 2.4). Parental consent was given for all activities at the time of program enrollment, and youth were asked to complete the survey voluntarily. Youth who completed the survey and anthropometric measurements received a modest monetary incentive for their participation. Of the approximately 150 youth (ages 9 to 18 yrs) attending the program at the time of this project, 93% volunteered to participate. The project was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Human Subjects at the University of Minnesota.