The effect of a nutrition education intervention on school-age boys attending a sports camp

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, C.S.
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Outros Autores: Teixeira, Vitor Hugo, Carvalho, Pedro
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/handle/10216/77540
• topic: Ciências da Saúde, Ciências médicas e da saúde; Health sciences, Medical and Health sciences

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Changes in dietary and lifestyle patterns worldwide have led to an increased prevalenceof childhood obesity, becoming imperative to explore e"ective strategies to both prevent andtreat this disease.Objectives: This non-randomized controlled trial evaluated the e"ectiveness of a short-term nutritioneducation intervention (4 hours, distributed over 5 days) on improving the dietary knowledge, dietquality and Body Mass Index-for-age z-score of 26 school-age boys (6 to 11 years old) attending aholiday sports camp.Methodology: Both intervention (n=26) and control (n=39) groups were evaluated immediatelybefore and 6 weeks after the intervention (Body Mass Index and KIDMED were evaluated for bothgroups; while nutrition knowledge questionnaire was only for intervention group).Results: In the intervention group, a significant decrease was observed in BMI z-score (p<0.05), butthe overweight and obesity prevalence remained unchanged. No significant changes in knowledgeand diet quality were found in both groups. In the control group, there were not significant changesfor any variable.Conclusions: Holiday sports camps with nutrition education interventions can be a promising strategyto combat childhood obesity