In a country where childhood obesity is a growing epidemic, it is only logical to take a closer look at the affects that schools are having on our children’s health. According to the Center of Disease Control, children who are obese are more likely to become obese adults (2008). CDC also mentions that about 80% of children ages 10-15 years of age who where obese, became obese adults at the age of about 25. Childhood obesity also brings about many different health risks such as cardiovascular disease (cite). Children spend a great deal of time at school; the majority of their day as well as the year are spent in school. It would therefore make sense for a school to be a great place of intervention when it comes to learning about making healthier food choices. There are many aspects that contribute to this growing epidemic. It is difficult to monitor and control everything that children put into their mouths therefore by instilling a program in our schools that will help children learn about food and how to make healthy choices we can improve their health and possibly even help prevent adult obesity. If we are unable to completely change the foods that are being served to our children in schools than we should help them to make the healthiest choices. By In following the 6 steps to our intervention mapping plan we believe that schools will be able to increase the knowledge and health of their students, ultimately decreasing the rates of obesity in children across the country. Step 1 of the mapping approach involves conducting a needs assessment. The population at risk is school-aged children from grades K-5 who are from two different elementary schools. The schools were randomly selected from a lottery system. Our intervention includes one school from Minnesota and another from Texas, which will act as a control group. We have also selected two more schools from the same school districts; one from Minnesota and one from Texas. Unhealthy foods that consume our children’s school lunches are contributing greatly to the increase to the growing rates of childhood obesity in our country. There is a lack of fruits and vegetables being served in our schools lunches, instead children are faced with many unhealthy choices, therefore decreasing the likelihood for them to choose the healthier choice. Due to this lack of healthy choices and education in our children there is definitely needs for an intervention program that will help demonstrate to children how and what healthier choices are and also to educate them on the short and long term benefits of making these choices. *Find Governmental (CDC) research about school lunches and obesity rates. For the three different levels of community involvement the communities involvement in our intervention acts as all three of them, the host, target, and resource. The school that is involved in the program in the community will be hosting the intervention and considered the target for implementing these healthier eating habits. The chosen community’s school will assist in providing the children with the education as well as various options for the children in grades k-5. Not only will the teachers assist in this intervention, but the parents of the children in the community will as well. The last task in needs assessment involves establishing how future evaluations will be conducted. We decided that the evaluation for the intervention will be centered around the difference made in obesity levels in the children at the chosen schools, the increased amount of fruits and veggies are eaten at the school, and the ability for the program to be adopted, implemented and sustained within the school district. The last evaluation will be based on the control schools and how they are used in comparison to the intervention groups. The second step in the mapping step intervention is the preparation of the matrices of change objectives. See attached table of the matrices change objectives.