Physical activity promotion in a community based programme to reduce overweight prevalence in Belgian children

Abstract

Introduction Specific actions to promote physical activity (PA) and healthy food (HF) are taken in a community-based program (CBP) named VIASANO, aimed at reducing overweight prevalence in Belgian children. A cross sectional study has been undertaken to assess the outcome of this CBP by comparing the trends of overweight prevalence in two participating pilot towns with those in a reference population. Methods Viasano, which uses the EPODE methodology [1] , consists of the concerted action of the local political authority and a local project manager under the supervision of a national coordination team and a scientific counselling board. Over a 3-year period (2007–2010), in two pilot towns of Viasano, a total of 31 actions targeted at PA were launched compared with 86 actions on PA + HF and 107 actions on HF alone. Various types of PA were promoted at several levels: whole families, schools, youth clubs, sport facilities, etc. Meanwhile, the trends in BMI data measured at school using standardized methods were compared in 3–4 and 5–6 year old children from these two pilot towns (n = 1300 in 2007 and 1484 in 2010) and in same age children from the whole French speaking community of Belgium. Results The prevalence of overweight (including obesity) decreased in the pilot towns (–2.2%) while it remained stable in the reference population (+0.2%). After adjustment for lack of homogeneity between the two study populations, there was a clear trend towards a decrease of overweight in the pilot towns vs. the reference population (P = 0.058). Conclusion Specific actions to promote PA are an important component of Viasano and these results suggest that such a CBP combining actions on food and physical activity may contribute to containing the prevalence of childhood overweight even over a short period of time.