7-Year follow-up of a lifestyle intervention in overweight children: Comparison to an untreated control group

Abstract

We present the 7-year follow-up analysis in overweight children and adolescents, who had participated originally in a randomized control trial of a lifestyle intervention. We compared them to an untreated population-based control group to demonstrate the effectiveness of the intervention. Degree of overweight (BMI-SDS) was determined in 32 overweight children (mean age 11.5±1.5yrs, 65.6% females, mean BMI 23.7±1.5kg/m2) at onset of intervention (T0), end of 6-month intervention (T1), 12 months (T2) and 7 years after end of intervention (T3). A total of 76 overweight children derived from a representative national population survey served as control group. The participants in the intervention group reduced significantly their BMI-SDS between T0-T1 (mean±standard deviation-0.28±0.28, p<0.001) and demonstrated no significant changes between T1-T2 (mean±standard deviation-0.10±0.34) and between T2-T3 (median+0.07; interquartile range:-0.54-0.62). BMI-SDS at T3 was significantly (p=0.015) lower compared to T0. At T3, 46.8% of the participants in the intervention were normal-weight. The reduction in BMI-SDS between T0-T3 was significantly (p=0.043) greater in the intervention group (median-0.26; interquartile range-0.87-0.23 BMI-SDS) compared to the control group (mean±standard deviation-0.05±0.77). The lifestyle intervention led to a significant reduction of overweight in the 7-year follow-up period. This decrease in BMI-SDS was significantly greater than the changes in BMI-SDS in a control group. This study is registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT00422916).