Program helps kids stay at a healthy weight

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A two-year obesity prevention program that encourages grade-schoolers to be active and eat healthy foods can help normal-weight youngsters from becoming overweight, but doesn't seem to help kids who are already overweight to slim down, New Zealand researchers found.

While the difference in body mass index (BMI) over time between children participating in the program and those who were in control groups was small, it "has the potential to translate to large benefits in terms of population health," Dr. Rachael W. Taylor of the University of Otago in Dunedin and her colleagues say.

Taylor and her team compared 5- to 12-year-olds in four schools participating in the community-based APPLE program with children in three schools that didn't participate in the program. APPLE stands for A Pilot Programme for Lifestyle and Exercise (APPLE) Project.

Each school participating in the APPLE Project had a designated activity coordinator who provided students with more extracurricular opportunities for exercise, focusing less on sports and more on "lifestyle-based activities such as outdoor games, household chores, gardening, beach hikes, and children's games from different countries," the researchers write. Children also were instructed on the health hazards of consuming sugary drinks, and the benefits of boosting fruit and vegetable intake.

At one and two years into the program, children participating in the APPLE Project had lower BMIs, on average, than children at the control schools. At two years, their average waist circumference was 1 centimeter smaller. But there was no difference between the two groups in the percentage of children who were overweight.

Children in the APPLE Project group drank 33 percent less soda pop and 30 percent less fruit juice and fruit drinks than the control children, and ate nearly one more serving of fruit every three days.

Even though the program didn't seem to help kids who were overweight at the study's outset, the fact that normal-weight children and overweight children didn't gain more weight provides "some encouragement," Taylor and her team note, based on the growing prevalence of obesity in New Zealand and around the world.

"It is reassuring to discover that a relatively simple approach...can significantly have an impact on the weight gain in children during a relatively short time period," they conclude.

SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, September 2007