Abstract
High rates of childhood obesity require integral treatment with lifestyle modifications that achieve weight loss. We evaluated a lifestyle intervention on nutrient adequacy and diet quality in children and adolescents with abdominal obesity. A randomized controlled trial was performed on 107 participants, assigned either to a usual care group or to an intensive care group that followed a moderate hypocaloric Mediterranean diet and received nutritional education. Intake adequacy was evaluated using Dietary Reference Intakes and diet quality through the Diet Quality Index for Adolescents (DQI-A), the Healthy Lifestyle Diet-Index (HLD-I) and the Mediterranean Diet Quality Index (KIDMED). Both groups achieved a significant reduction in BMI standard deviation score (BMI-SDS), glucose and total cholesterol levels. Intake of Calcium, Iodine and vitamin D were higher in the intensive care group, with enhanced compliance with recommendations. Higher dietary scores were associated with lower micronutrient inadequacy. DQI-A and HLD-I were significantly higher in the intensive care group vs. usual care group after the treatment. In conclusion, we observed that an intensive lifestyle intervention was able to reduce BMI-SDS in children with abdominal obesity. Furthermore, participants significantly improved dietary indices getting closer to the nutritional recommendations. Therefore, these diet quality indices could be a valid indicator to evaluate micronutrient adequacy.
Highlights
Obesity is a multifactorial disease and its treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach. weight gain could have a genetic component, lifestyle factors are the most important modifiable risk factors [1,2]
The HDL-Index is composed of 10 items, eight of which refer to the frequency of consumption of fruit, vegetables, fish and seafood, sweets, regular soft drinks, grain, dairy products, meat and meat products
Diet quality and nutrient adequacy data were collected from 107 children with abdominal obesity (11.3 years old, 63% females)
Summary
Obesity is a multifactorial disease and its treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach. Intervention studies able to change lifestyle habits and improve diet quality are considered key in the treatment of paediatric obesity [4,5,6]. Dietary indices could be a useful tool to identify subjects at high nutritional risk, being those with a poor diet and lifestyle pattern [13,14,15,16] For this reason, the aim of our study was to evaluate, in children with abdominal obesity, the effect of a lifestyle intervention on nutrient adequacy and diet quality, as assessed by Diet Quality Index for Adolescents (DQI-A), Healthy Lifestyle Diet-Index (HDL-I) and Mediterranean Diet Quality Index (KIDMED)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
