The BRAVO project: screening for childhood obesity in a primary school setting

The prevalence of childhood obesity is increasing worldwide, raising a number of public health concerns. First, childhood obesity is a strong predictor of adult obesity; second, the low long term success rate and the high social cost of the treatment of obesity suggest that attention should be paid to the prevention of obesity early in childhood. The objective of the present study was to evaluate dietary habits and anthropometric factors in a sample of schoolchildren aged 6-12 years living in Southern Italy in the framework of an ongoing prospective study aimed at childhood obesity prevention.

The BRAVO Project is carried out in co-operation with the school staff and is a part of an educational program on nutrition for the schoolchildren and their families. During the first phase of the study, the prevalence of overweight and obesity was evaluated in 363 children adopting the criteria for definition of childhood obesity recently proposed by the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF). The main result of this study was that in our cohort an exceedingly high risk of becoming overweight in adult age was observed for any one-year age class.

The results of the present study confirmed the trend toward an increasing prevalence of childhood obesity observed in other Western countries. Moreover, out data--though preliminary--suggest that the large scale involvement of primary school in screening programs could represent an effective preventive strategy against the increased risk of childhood obesity.