Mindfulness as a strategy for the treatment of childhood obesity

• Autor(a) principal: Machado, Iruana M
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Costa, Thaiane Rubioli, Delgado, Camila Silva, Ferreira, Mariana, Ferreira, Lize Vargas
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: HU Revista (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufjf.br/index.php/hurevista/article/view/13958
• topic: obesidade; atenção plena; processos grupais

Introduction: Childhood obesity is a serious global public health problem. Management of this disease is complex, as it depends on changes of family habits. The mindfulness technique can be effective in this context by acting both on weight gain and on anxious symptoms. Objective: to evaluate the practice of mindfulness in obese children and adolescents as well as its applicability to their parents. Material and Methods: Longitudinal clinical trial with 28 patients attended at a tertiary pediatric endocrinology outpatient clinic from June 2016 to June 2018, who participated to five monthly group mindfulness guided sessions and weekly programmed home activities. Weight, height, Body Mass Index and waist, abdomen, hip and arm circumference were evaluated before each monthly session. Results: mean chronological age of participants was 10.7 土 3.68 years; Z score of BMI 3.13 土 0.89, the abdominal circumference 90.9 土 15.86 cm. Mean BMI on the first evaluation was 29.1 土 4.63 kg / m2 and 29.9 土 3.81 kg / m2 on last evaluation. Data on BMI evolution, waist circumference, waist circumference, hip circumference and right arm circumference did not present significant difference between the initial and final values. However, there has been an improvement in the relationship between the children and their caregivers with some changes in family behavior. Conclusion: mindfulness practice in children and adolescents, as well as in their parents, showed no impact on weight reduction of assessed patients. In the long run, this approach may lead to positive results in quality of life and improvement in eating habits, and therefore may lead to weight reduction.