Benefits of health classes short-lived
Alison Bennett
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Short healthy eating lessons have no long-term impact on childhood obesity levels, a study has found.
The British Medical Journal found a year-long education programme that successfully cut the level of obesity in children by teaching them about healthy eating and discouraging fizzy drinks was no longer effective three years after the intervention came to an end.
The findings were due to be released yesterday (9 October) and detailed how a healthy eating project, known as Ditch the Fizz, ran with children aged between seven and 11 years old in six junior schools in 2001.
Ditch the Fizz focused on discouraging children from consuming fizzy drinks and promoted a healthy diet through four extra health education classes spread over the year. At the end of the study the authors found "significant" differences in the proportion of overweight children in the control group, who didn't take part, and those children in the intervention group.
But two years after the project finished, researchers found the number of overweight children had increased in both groups although obesity levels were still higher in the control group. But three years on the gap was no longer significant.
The British Medical Journal said the findings raised questions as to whether anti-obesity work needed to be continuous if it is to be of any use.
"It remains unclear whether specific interventions or those which focus on all aspects of the diet and physical activity are the most successful," it said. "Perhaps the true impact of any school-based intervention can effectively only be evaluated if the interventions are continuous."
Colin Waine, chair of the National Obesity Forum, said the research was important and showed how children needed to be taught healthy eating habits from an early age. "If you're tackling obesity after it has occurred then it does need long term support," he said.
"Short term will get you nowhere. This supports our view that we really need to be developing healthy eating habits so it's the norm and doesn't have to be changed later on."
- http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/october/childobesity.pdf.
