Purpose.

The primary purpose of the current study was to develop, implement, and evaluate a hip hop dance intervention, Latin Active, among low-income Mexican-American adolescents. Mexican-descent adolescents tend to have disproportionate rates of low physical activity, overweight status, and obesity.

Design.

A 5-week intervention design with pretest and post-test self-report measures.

Setting.

Charter middle school (grades 6–9) health/science classes in a low-income neighborhood were the setting for the Latin Active intervention.

Participants.

Overall, 81 participants were recruited; 73 (n = 41, female; n = 32, male) provided active parental consent to complete pretest/post-test surveys.

Intervention.

The Latin Active program included 10 interactive 50-minute lessons that were delivered twice a week during science/health classes. The curriculum was created on the basis of Social Cognitive Theory, Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy, and feedback from key stakeholders. The lessons focused on increasing physical activity as well as neighborhood barriers.

Measures.

The self-report pretest (n = 73) and post-test (n = 56) surveys included measures for frequency of vigorous physical activity, self-efficacy, and neighborhood barriers.

Analysis.

Paired-sample t-test analyses were conducted to assess mean differences from pretest to post-test results for intervention outcomes by gender.

Results.

The Latin Active program (with 77% retention at post-test) significantly increased vigorous physical activity and dance (p < . 05) and increased self-efficacy (p < . 05) among girls, and it decreased perception of neighborhood barriers (p < . 05) among boys.

Conclusion.

A hip hop physical activity program, Latin Active demonstrated preliminary efficacy to increase girl's vigorous physical activity and boy's perception of neighborhood barriers to physical activity. Future research will need to use a randomized, controlled design and investigate the effect of the program on measures of body mass index.