Parents Lose Weight When Program Targets Children’s Fitness
January 02, 2015Parents whose children were part of a school-centered, community-based obesity prevention program reported losing a modest amount of weight over the course of the 2-year intervention, according to a study published online December 18 in the American Journal of Public Health.
The program may be the first to measure the effect of a school-based program on community health, according to Edward Coffield, PhD, prevention effectiveness fellow, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues. The researchers surveyed 478 parents at the start and completion of a program targeting children in grades 1 through 3, called Shape Up Somerville: Eat Smart Play Hard, which ran from 2002 to 2005. Parents were asked for their height and weight, socioeconomic data, and information about their child’s physical activity and dietary habits. Of participating parents, 122 had children in 10 elementary schools in Somerville, Massachusetts, which participated in Shape Up Somerville (SUS). Another 356 had children in 20 elementary schools in two communities outside the Somerville media market and served as the control group.
The estimated treatment effect was a −0.411 point reduction in body mass index in the treatment group (95% confidence interval, −0.725 to −0.097) compared with control parents.
Although the treatment effect was modest in size, the authors estimate the effect would be enough to reduce mean body mass index of treatment parents from overweight to healthy weight, one of the Institute of Medicine’s adult obesity prevention goals.
The program included city walkability and bikeability ordinances; healthier menu options in Somerville restaurants; a regular SUS column in the community newspaper, the Somerville Journal; and a home newsletter with coupons and recipes delivered to parents of children in SUS schools. Adults in the SUS community were exposed to 100 SUS community events, including a fitness fair. SUS materials were printed in Somerville’s four dominant languages (English, Spanish, Haitian-Creole, and Portuguese), and parent forums were held in each language.
In a parental survey, 95.8% of parents reported they sometimes or always read the SUS newsletter. Of parents who received the Somerville Journal, 86.2% reported reading SUS articles in the newspaper. More than half of the parents (56.5%) reported choosing healthier options while eating out because of SUS, and almost a third (32.2%) of parents reported they walked more.
«We’ve provided new evidence that community wide school-based obesity prevention efforts may go beyond the target audience of young children and influence the weight status of their parent, who helps decide what they eat and how active they are at home. From a public health perspective, this is a pretty powerful observation,» Christina Economos, PhD, an associate professor at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, and principal investigator of SUS, said in a university news release.
Funding for this research was provided by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with additional unrestricted support from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, United Way of Mass Bay, the US Potato Board, Stonyfield Farm, and Dole Foods.
Am J Public Health. Published online December 18, 2014. Abstract
