The Impact of School-Based Intervention for 9-13-year-old School Children with Overweight and Obesity

United Arab Emirates University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Overweight Children; Obese Children and Adolescents

Treatments: Other: Questionnaire; Other: Anthropometric measurements; Other: Educational sessions

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06671964

ERSC_2022_744

Details and patient eligibility

About

Childhood obesity is a major issue for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Interventions modifying people's nutritional behavior and changing their dietary habits can potentially address this problem. This study assessed the effectiveness of the 6-month school-based nutritional educational intervention on fruit and vegetable intake, nutrition knowledge, anthropometric measures, and practice, attitude, and self-efficacy measures.

Full description

The problem of childhood obesity is a critical issue for the UAE. Findings of recent studies illustrate that nutritional interventions seeking to modify people's nutritional behavior and change their dietary habits have the potential to address this problem. This article reports the results of the study that was dedicated to the influence of the school-based nutritional educational intervention on fruit and vegetable intake, anthropometric measures, practice, attitude, self-efficacy, and knowledge scores of schoolchildren. The intervention was carried out among 9-13-year-old schoolchildren at public schools from Dubai and Sharjah (n=403). The sample included three groups, including the control group (n=114), Intervention Group 1 (n=148), and Intervention Group 2 (n=141). The control group was exposed to a conventional curriculum on healthy nutrition. Group 1 participated in the intervention involving children, and Group 2 participated in the intervention involving students, peers, and parents.

Enrollment: 403 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 9 to 13 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• WHO BMI-for-age growth charts, Students with BMI from the 85th to the 95th percentile were categorized as "overweight," and those who were above the 95th percentile were categorized as "obese"
• Attending Government school.
• Within Grades 6-9.
• Live in Dubai or Sharjah
• Female and male students

Exclusion criteria

• Students with BMI below the 85th percentile for the WHO BMI-for-age growth charts.
• Not attending a government school
• Living in another emirate (not Dubai or Sharjah)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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403 participants in 4 patient groups

students one-one

Other group

Description:

1. During the intervention, 30-minute in person sessions and lectures are held on a one-on-one basis . 2. Lectures were conducted daily for five days during the first month of the intervention 3. The students were exposed to the school nutrition education curriculum, which may also be considered an intervention as it introduced students to new nutrition knowledge. The school nutrition education curriculum presented general information about nutrition in accordance with official guidelines issued by the UAE Ministry of Education. Topics covered included the dangers of obesity, the prevalence of obesity in the UAE, and potentially effective ways to prevent this problem, the information in this program was broad and did not provide practical recommendations to students except for a set of general suggestions. 4. The topics covered included a healthy eating lifestyle, energy balance, food portion control, healthy snacking, the importance of physical activity and healthy eating, dietary

Treatment:

Other: Educational sessions

Other: Anthropometric measurements

Other: Questionnaire

Peers

Other group

Description:

1. 30-minute in person sessions were introduced to all the school children, and 10-minute question-and-answer sections were held at the end of each lesson to support knowledge acquisition. 2. Lectures were conducted daily for five days in the first month of the study. 3. The students were exposed to the school nutrition education curriculum, which may also be considered an intervention as it introduced students to new nutrition knowledge. The school nutrition education curriculum presented general information about nutrition in accordance with official guidelines issued by the UAE Ministry of Education. Topics covered included the dangers of obesity, the prevalence of obesity in the UAE, and potentially effective ways to prevent this problem, the information in this program was broad and did not provide practical recommendations to students except for a set of general suggestions. 4. The topics covered included a healthy eating lifestyle,

Treatment:

Other: Educational sessions

Control group

No Intervention group

Description:

The students in the control group did not receive any nutrition intervention except for the usual school curriculum-based nutrition education program. Participants in the intervention and control groups were recruited from different sections of the same schools.

parents

Other group

Description:

1. 30-minute in person sessions and 10-minute question-and-answer sections were held at the end of each lesson to support knowledge acquisition. 2. Lectures were conducted daily for five days in the first month of the study.

Treatment:

Other: Educational sessions