Abstract
BackgroundThe increasing rates of obesity among children and adolescents, especially in those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, emphasise the need for interventions promoting a healthy diet and physical activity. The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the ‘Health Scores!’ program, which combined professional football player role models with a school-based program to promote a healthy diet and physical activity to socially vulnerable children and adolescents.MethodsThe intervention was implemented in two settings: professional football clubs and schools. Socially vulnerable children and adolescents (n = 165 intervention group, n = 440 control group, aged 10-14 year) provided self-reported data on dietary habits and physical activity before and after the four-month intervention. Intervention effects were evaluated using repeated measures analysis of variance. In addition, a process evaluation was conducted.ResultsNo intervention effects were found for several dietary behaviours, including consumption of breakfast, fruit, soft drinks or sweet and savoury snacks. Positive intervention effects were found for self-efficacy for having a daily breakfast (p < 0.01), positive attitude towards vegetables consumption (p < 0.01) and towards lower soft drink consumption (p < 0.001). A trend towards significance (p < 0.10) was found for self-efficacy for reaching the physical activity guidelines. For sports participation no significant intervention effect was found. In total, 92 pupils completed the process evaluation, the feedback was largely positive.ConclusionsThe ‘Health Scores!’ intervention was successful in increasing psychosocial correlates of a healthy diet and PA. The use of professional football players as a credible source for health promotion was appealing to socially vulnerable children and adolescents.
Highlights
The increasing rates of obesity among children and adolescents, especially in those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, emphasise the need for interventions promoting a healthy diet and physical activity
Given the limited number of girls in the intervention group and because football is especially popular among boys, girls were excluded from all further analyses
Baseline demographic characteristics of the intervention group were compared with the control group
Summary
The increasing rates of obesity among children and adolescents, especially in those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, emphasise the need for interventions promoting a healthy diet and physical activity. The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the ‘Health Scores!’ program, which combined professional football player role models with a school-based program to promote a healthy diet and physical activity to socially vulnerable children and adolescents. Children and adolescents from low-income families are more likely to be obese than their counterparts from higher income backgrounds [4]. Both short term and long term consequences of childhood obesity have been established, including insulin resistance, sleep disorders, low self-esteem and an overall increased risk of adult morbidity and mortality [5]. Dietary intake and physical activity (PA) are important behaviours related to the energy balance [9,10] and are considered key elements in the prevention of overweight and obesity [11,12,13]
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