Most obesity prevention programs for kids fail

By Megan Rauscher

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The "vast majority" of obesity prevention programs aimed at children and adolescents have not prevented obesity, a literature review indicates.

"This is a huge problem," lead author Dr. Eric Stice, a psychologist from the University of Texas at Austin, told Reuters Health, "given that the rates of obesity continue to increase. Indeed, obesity is currently credited with 110,000 deaths annually in the U.S."

Stice and two associates pooled the results from 46 studies published in the last 25 years that assessed 64 different obesity prevention programs for children and adolescents.

Of the 64 programs, only 13 (21 percent) successfully prevented weight gain and these programs were "intensive," requiring an average of 40 hours of intervention time. "None of the prevention programs that did produce weight gain prevention effects have been disseminated on a wide-scale basis," Stice noted.

Moreover, many of the benefits achieved in these "successful" programs were short lived, lasting only 3 years at most.

Brief interventions focusing solely on weight loss and directed toward female children and adolescents seem to work best, Stice and colleagues found. "Programs for preadolescents and males will require new approaches because these two populations derived the least benefit from the existing programs," Stice said in a statement.

Specifically, Stice told Reuters Health, the programs that appear to have the most effects involve clear reductions in caloric intake and sedentary behaviors, as well as clear increases in physical activity. "Accordingly, it would be prudent to re-introduce physical education into schools again for all grades through high school," he said.

It's estimated that 70 percent of obese teens will remain overweight as adults if they fail to shed the extra pounds in their younger years and interventions must begin early to prevent later health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

"Parents can reduce the risk for obesity onset among their own children," Stice said, "by feeding their children a healthier diet (less high-fat foods, more fruits and vegetables), reducing the amount of sedentary behaviors the family engages in (watching TV and using computers for games, web surfing) and by exercising daily with their children."

SOURCE: Psychological Bulletin, September 2006.