What Works for the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity Among Children

Posted by on April 05, 2010

Child Trends publishes guide to child obesity prevention

A new Child Trends fact sheet, What Works for the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity Among Children, reviews 50 programs whose impacts on nutrition, physical activity, and/or weight loss have been rigorously evaluated.

The programs targeted children and youth from one to 19 years of age.  Among the findings:
— Programs that focus on only nutrition, physical activity, or weight loss tend to be more successful than those that simultaneously focus on all three outcome categories.
— Successful physical activity programs generally implement skill-building techniques, require participants to track their own exercise progress, and may have a therapy or counseling component.
— Overweight and obese children tend to benefit from nutrition, physical activity, and weight loss programs, while impacts are not found in general child populations.

The fact sheet also includes short descriptions of the rigorously evaluated programs and whether they were found to work, not proven to work, or had mixed findings for nutrition, physical activity, and weight loss.

To download the document, click here.

http://www.childtrends.org/Files//Child_Trends_2010_03_25_FS_WWObesity.pdf