Effect of 12-month intervention with lipid-based nutrient supplements on physical activity of 18-month-old Malawian children: a randomised, controlled trial.

Abstract

This study measured the effects of dietary supplementation with lipid-based nutrient supplements (LNSs) on 18-month-old children's physical activity. In a randomised, controlled, outcome-assessor blinded trial 1932 six-month-old children from Malawi received one of five interventions daily from 6-18 months of age: 10-g milk-LNS, 20-g milk-LNS, 20-g non-milk-LNS, 40-g milk-LNS or 40-g non-milk-LNS, or received no intervention in the same period (control). The control group received delayed intervention with corn-soy blend from 18-30 months. Physical activity was measured over 1 week by ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometer at 18 months. Main outcome was mean vector magnitude accelerometer counts/15 s. Analyses were restricted to children with valid accelerometer data on at least 4 days with minimum 6 h of wearing time per day. Of the 1435 children recruited to this substudy, 1053 provided sufficient data for analysis. The mean (s.d.) vector magnitude accelerometer counts in the total sample were 307 (64). The difference (95% CI) in mean accelerometer counts, compared with the control group, was 8 (-6 to 21, P=0.258) in 10-g milk-LNS, 3 (-11 to 17, P=0.715) in 20-g milk-LNS, 5 (-8 to 19, P=0.445) in 20-g non-milk-LNS, 10 (-3 to 23, P=0.148) in 40-g milk-LNS and 2 (-12 to 16, P=0.760) in 40-g non-milk-LNS groups. Provision of 10-40 g doses of LNS daily for 12 months did not increase physical activity of Malawian toddlers.