Combatting Childhood Obesity in An Australian Community Intervention: Do Goal-Setting and Incentives Encourage Healthy Eating and Exercise Behaviour Change?

Julie Redfern

doi:10.19080/pbsij.2019.11.555813

Abstract

Combatting Childhood Obesity in An Australian Community Intervention: Do Goal-Setting and Incentives Encourage Healthy Eating and Exercise Behaviour Change?

Highlights

Reducing childhood obesity is of increasing public health importance
Systematic reviews investigating the effectiveness of childfocused behavioural interventions have indicated small positive outcomes on healthy eating and physical activity behaviours [5], facilitating behaviour change in obesity-focused public health initiatives is often challenging because people struggle
Qualitative research conducted in New South Wales Australia between 2014-2016 between the six and 18-month follow-up of an associated cluster randomised controlled trial [32]

Summary

Introduction

Reducing childhood obesity is of increasing public health importance. In 2014, 41 million children under five years of age were estimated to be overweight [1] and being overweight as a child has been shown to carry a high risk of being obese as an adult [2] and accelerating the risks of associated conditions such as cardiovascular disease [3]. Several small randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have used a combination of psychological strategies (such as peer modelling) and low value incentives to encourage behaviour change in children within primary schools to encourage exercise behaviour [24,25] and fruit and vegetable consumption [26,27]. These studies highlighted that incentive strategies shown to effectively influence multiple target behaviours short term may have varied effects longer term for those behaviours, and that differences can emerge by age, gender and socio-economic background [22,26]. Information on the social and environmental influences and behavioural mechanisms involved in health-related behaviour change is missing from existing research on child-focused incentive-based interventions in community settings

Objectives

Methods

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Conclusion