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Assessing the short-term outcomes of a community-based intervention for overweight and obese children: The MEND 5-7
L R Smith1, P Chadwick, D Radley
1Childhood Nutrition Research Centre, University College London, Institute of Child Health, London, UK.
Insights
The UK
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Obesity Interventions
- Public Health
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Childhood obesity is a significant public health concern.
- Community-based interventions are crucial for managing pediatric weight.
- The MEND (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition...Do it!) 5-7 program targets young children and families.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the outcomes of the MEND 5-7 healthy lifestyle intervention delivered in UK community settings.
- Assess the effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention for overweight and obese children aged 5-7 years.
- Report on physical, behavioral, and psychological changes in participating children and families.
Main Methods:
- Repeated measures design across 37 UK community venues.
- Intervention involved 440 overweight/obese children (mean age 6.1 years) and their parents/carers.
- 10-week program with weekly sessions on positive parenting, nutrition, and behavior change.
Main Results:
- Significant reductions in mean BMI (0.5 kg/m²) and waist circumference (0.9 cm) post-intervention.
- Improvements observed in children's psychological symptoms, parent self-efficacy, and physical activity levels.
- Increased fruit and vegetable consumption reported by both parents and children (p<0.0001).
Conclusions:
- The MEND 5-7 program demonstrated positive physical, behavioral, and psychological outcomes in a UK community setting.
- The intervention shows promise for scalable delivery by health and social care professionals.
- Further research is recommended to validate findings under controlled conditions.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to report outcomes of the UK service level delivery of MEND (Mind,Exercise,Nutrition...Do it!) 5-7, a multicomponent, community-based, healthy lifestyle intervention designed for overweight and obese children aged 5-7 years and their families.
Design:
Repeated measures.
Setting:
Community venues at 37 locations across the UK.
Participants:
440 overweight or obese children (42% boys; mean age 6.1 years; body mass index (BMI) z-score 2.86) and their parents/carers participated in the intervention.
Intervention:
MEND 5-7 is a 10-week, family-based, child weight-management intervention consisting of weekly group sessions. It includes positive parenting, active play, nutrition education and behaviour change strategies. The intervention is designed to be scalable and delivered by a range of health and social care professionals.
Primary And Secondary Outcome Measures:
The primary outcome was BMI z-score. Secondary outcome measures included BMI, waist circumference, waist circumference z-score, children's psychological symptoms, parenting self-efficacy, physical activity and sedentary behaviours and the proportion of parents and children eating five or more portions of fruit and vegetables.
Results:
274 (62%) children were measured preintervention and post-intervention (baseline; 10-weeks). Post-intervention, mean BMI and waist circumference decreased by 0.5 kg/m(2) and 0.9 cm, while z-scores decreased by 0.20 and 0.20, respectively (p<0.0001). Improvements were found in children's psychological symptoms (-1.6 units, p<0.0001), parent self-efficacy (p<0.0001), physical activity (+2.9 h/week, p<0.01), sedentary activities (-4.1 h/week, p<0.0001) and the proportion of parents and children eating five or more portions of fruit and vegetables per day (both p<0.0001). Attendance at the 10 sessions was 73% with a 70% retention rate.
Conclusions:
Participation in the MEND 5-7 programme was associated with beneficial changes in physical, behavioural and psychological outcomes for children with complete sets of measurement data, when implemented in UK community settings under service level conditions. Further investigation is warranted to establish if these findings are replicable under controlled conditions.
