An analysis of obesity intervention in primary school students in Nanjing city

Objective To evaluate the impact of a school-based intervention for obesity in elementary students in order to provide evidence for exploration of the effective pattern of childhood obesity intervention.Methods A cluster randomized controlled trial was used to select 8 randomly in urban primary schools.Each school was randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group (four schools in each group).Participants were the 4th grade in each participating school.The field intervention was planned to be implemented among intervention group from May 2010 to April 2011.Baseline survey was conducted among 1 182 people(638 people in intervention group,544 people in control group),and 1 129 people were interviewed after intervention(616 people in intervention group,513 people in control group).Results The prevalence of overweight and obesity was 26.5%,27.4% in control group and intervention group before implementation of intervention activity,respectively.The prevalence of overweight and obesity was 20.9%,21.1% in control group and intervention group after implementation of intervention activity,respectively.The differences were of no statistical significance(P>0.05).After one year intervention,students' knowledge,except for the knowledge about "it is good to eat more vegetable and fruits",increased significantly in the intervention group,compared to control group (P<0.05).Conclusion School-based intervention for obesity is successful to improve students' knowledge change relating to obesity control,however it is not effective to control obesity.