Research Centre on Child Studies, University of Minho, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal.
Department of Community Medicine, Information and Decision in Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Dec 6;18(23):12846. doi: 10.3390/ijerph182312846.
Effective interventions for guiding children to change behaviours are needed to tackle obesity. We evaluated the effectiveness of the 'Planning Health in School' programme (PHS-pro) on children's nutritional status. A non-randomised control group pretest-posttest trial was conducted at elementary schools of a sub-urban municipality in Porto's metropolitan area (Portugal). A total of 504 children of grade-6, aged 10-14, were assigned in two groups: children of one school as the intervention group (IG), and three schools as the control group (CG). Anthropometric measures included height, weight, waist circumference (WC), BMI and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), and lifestyle behaviours (self-reported questionnaire) were assessed at baseline and after PHS-pro. IG children grew significantly taller more than CG ones ( < 0.001). WC had reduced significantly in IG (-0.4 cm) whereas in the CG had increased (+0.3 cm; = 0.015), and WHtR of IG showed a significant reduction ( = 0.002) compared with CG. After PHS-pro, IG children consumed significantly fewer soft drinks ( = 0.043) and ate more fruit and vegetables daily than CG. Physical activity time increased significantly in IG ( = 0.022), while CG maintained the same activity level. The PHS-pro did improve anthropometric outcomes effectively leading to better nutritional status and appears to be promising in reducing overweight and obesity.
需要有效的干预措施来引导儿童改变行为,以解决肥胖问题。我们评估了“学校健康计划”(PHS-pro)对儿童营养状况的有效性。在波尔图大都市区一个郊区市镇的小学进行了非随机对照预-后试验。共有 504 名 10-14 岁的六年级儿童被分为两组:一所学校的儿童为干预组(IG),三所学校为对照组(CG)。在基线和 PHS-pro 后评估了身高、体重、腰围(WC)、BMI 和腰高比(WHtR)等人体测量指标以及生活方式行为(自我报告问卷)。IG 儿童的身高增长明显高于 CG 儿童(<0.001)。IG 的 WC 显著减少(-0.4 厘米),而 CG 的 WC 则增加(+0.3 厘米;=0.015),IG 的 WHtR 与 CG 相比显著降低(=0.002)。PHS-pro 后,IG 儿童每天饮用的软饮料明显减少(=0.043),水果和蔬菜的摄入量增加。IG 儿童的体育活动时间显著增加(=0.022),而 CG 则保持相同的活动水平。PHS-pro 有效地改善了人体测量结果,导致更好的营养状况,并且似乎有望减少超重和肥胖。