Longitudinal 2-year follow-up on the effect of a non-randomised school-based physical activity intervention on reducing overweight and obesity of Czech children aged 10-12 years.

BACKGROUND

This study assessed whether the benefits of a 2-year longitudinal non-randomised school-based physical activity (PA) intervention programme to reduce overweight and obesity were still apparent two years after completion of the controlled intervention.

METHODS

The study involved 84 girls (G) and 92 boys (B) aged 10-12 years who had participated in the PA intervention in 2006-2008 as 6- to 9-year olds and were included in the intervention (I) (43 G and 45 B) and the control (C) groups (41 G and 47 B). Participants' overweight/obesity was assessed using the percentile graph of Body Mass Index (BMI) from the World Health Organization for girls and boys aged 5-19. Logistic regression (Enter method) determined the overweight/obesity occurrence in a follow-up measurement (2010) two years after completion of the controlled intervention was used.

RESULTS

Two years after the controlled PA intervention had finished, the intervention children were less likely to be overweight/obese than the control children (2.3%GI vs. 17.1%GC, 6.7%BI vs. 23.4%BC, odds ratio: 0.25; 95% confidence interval: 0.12; 0.53; p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

The current study indicates favourable effects of an everyday school-based PA intervention programme on lower overweight/obesity incidence, which was maintained two years after the end of the direct involvement of the researchers.