Effectiveness of a Diet and Physical Activity Promotion Strategy on The Prevention of Obesity

Hi everyone here the last blog that I will post related to our topics about obesity for young children. This time I will share you about the research that have been done in State of Mexico. 

Research indicates that obesity is the global epidemic of the 21^st century, especially due to its prevalent growth and health implications. In Mexico, the prevalence of overweight and obesity increased by 9%, from 61% to 70% from 1999 to 2006. The whole population, including both adults and school children, showed an increase in the number of overweight individual, making it one of the countries with the highest prevalence of overweight and obesity population. There are a few projects that are underway in Mexico, to help curb the growth of the sombre public health predicament. A study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a diet and physical activity strategy among school age children in the State of Mexico, referred to as “Nutrition on the Go” to maintain BMI, as a basis for establishing public health policy (Levy, et, al, 2012).

The method used involved a randomized field trial using fifth grade elementary school children in 60 Mexican schools. Subjects were participants of a school breakfast program in both federal and state educational systems with morning and evening shifts. The strategy involved: a gradual decrease of the energy content of school breakfasts; gradual regulation of food offered within the school; gradual adherence to the physical activity program; and implementation of an educational campaign, called “Healthy Break,” for healthy eating and physical activity. The objectives of this program were to promote consuming one fruit and one vegetable, drinking pure water and performing physical activity (organized games and calisthenics) during break. A baseline test was conducted in all schools to establish the initial characteristics of intervention and control groups. Information was also obtained related to anthropometrics, socioeconomic level, food, physical activity, self-efficacy and knowledge. The same information was obtained for the final evaluation (Levy, et, al, 2012).

The variables measured included: body composition, whereby the body mass index was determined by measuring both weigh and weight; and behaviour outcomes by examining food intake, physical activity, knowledge, self-efficacy and expectations, using questionnaires. The main finding of the study was that the strategy “Nutrition on the Go” had a small but statistically significant effect on reducing the probability of shifting from the overweight to the obesity category after 6 months of intervention. The study indicated that interventions are most effective for females when they include social aspects and for males when they involve physical activity. Moreover, self-efficacy and children’s perception about their own ability to perform physical activity and healthy eating is now considered to be more related to changes in behaviour related to obesity risk factors (Levy, et, al, 2012).

One of the limitations of the study was that it was conducted only in the school environment, where children are present for 4.5 half hours, so larger effects could not be expected since children spent the rest of the day in obesigenic environments. Another limitation was the duration of the intervention, which lasted only 6 months; a longer intervention is needed in order to observe the impacts. Nonetheless, previous reports show that intervention lengths for some studies ranged from 9 weeks to 3 years and that intervention of all durations successfully reduced obesity among overweight or obese children (Levy, et, al, 2012).

The study indicated that the “Nutrition on the Go” strategy was effective for maintaining the BMI of school children. The authors suggest that policies for interventions to prevent obesity in schools in Mexico should consider changes within the school environment itself through actions such as improving physical education classes and creating more aggressive nutrition policies. For greater impact, the inclusion of parents and teachers is recommended, as well as government officials, communities and civil society as elements in healthy lifestyles as well as the development and welfare of society (Levy, et, al, 2012).

Reference List

Levy, T., Carmen M., Claudia A., Araceli S., Alejandra J. and Ignacio M. (2012). Effectiveness of a diet and physical activity promotion strategy on the prevention of obesity in Mexican school children, BMC Public Health, 12(152), doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-152. <http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/152>

Physical Activity vs Eating Healthy Diet

In my last blog, I share that  obesity in children is mainly caused by unhealthy eating habits, and inadequate physical activity. Because these eating patterns begin in early childhood, attempts to reduce overweight among children must start early. The essential and effective approach for preventing obesity or overweight in children is through practicing healthy eating diet (Macé & Shahkhalili, 2010).

Eating behaviors as well as physical activity among children are guides which are established in childhood, but some studies consider that physical activities may not be effective enough to reduce obesity. Selections of children’s foods are influenced by what parents provide them and healthy foods give nutrition for developing bodies while modeling safe eating habits and ways.

Diet with minimal or standard amount of fats and provision of high simple carbohydrates has been reported to be simply as valuable in generating a small weight loss as an equivalent diet having high input of complex carbohydrates. Nevertheless, some analyzes propose that sugar and drinks apply a weaker impact on satiety and can contribute a lot in promoting the rate of obesity among children. Some other issues are whole grain and dietary fiber element of the diet, this is vegetables and fruits. Furthermore, raising amount of dietary protein from 12 to 20% of sum energy can provide an extra approach to reducing fat and adequate carbohydrate diets, and have the possibility to improve satiety (Debruyne, Pinna, & Noss, 2011, p.279). In contrary, Professionals consider that children are planned to be sedentary or sporty and forcing them into physical activities can have minimal impact on whether the child is obese or not (Mela, 2005, p.35). The research reported that although lower than half of boys and one in seven girls do the suggested length of exercise daily and this is not reflected in their physical appearance.

Availability of food, family practices, and social norms at schools and child care services help in controlling the eating behaviours of children. They may influence kids from taking a healthy diet or make sure those children with excessive contact to unwholesome foods, which possess more calories, have knowledge about its hazards. Furthermore, studies report that parents practicing healthy eating habits would make their children follow the same. Therefore, practicing better eating behaviors in children and making sure that they retain these practices for a longer time would help in reducing the possibility of obesity.

Providing a healthy diet is the keystone of most favorable development and growth for babies and teens. A healthy diet permits children to carry on with their education successfully. Eating wide range of meals during early age is probably to set up food preferences which will remain into old age. The food favorites of several people at old age are likely to resemble the foods which they mostly consumed during their early age. For instance, kids who consume huge amount of energy dense foods are probably to become obese, particularly if they are inactive.

The study involving around 400 six years old kids in California reported that the quantity of exercise children perform is not connected with their Body Mass Index (Wing, 2009). Children who perform enough exercises were in a good health when they evaluated the fat contents in their blood and blood pressure; however the quantity of exercise they perform did not affect the fat level. In early age, physical activity is linked with a continuous development in metabolic health but not with an adjustment in obesity or BMI. From above discussion, we can conclude that eating good diet is more effective than forcing children to do exercises. Despite this opposition, children should be encouraged to do more exercises to enhance their better health.

References

Debruyne, L., Pinna, K., & Noss, E. (2011). Nutrition & Diet Therapy. Florence, KY: Cengage Learning.

Jay, P. (2011). Obesity on Children. Journal of Economic Perspectives , 25(2): 140–159.

Macé, K., & Shahkhalili, C. (2010). Dietary fat and fat types as early determinants of childhood obesity: a reappraisal. Int J Obes (Lond) , 34(7): 12-30.

Mela, D. (2005). Food, diet and obesity. New York: CRC Press.

Wing, K. (2009). Healthy Diet in Children. Journal of Cunsulting and Clinical Psychology, 32(3): 2-34.