Promoting Water Consumption for Prevention of Overweight in School Children in a Controlled Intervention Trial

Not Applicable

Completed

Brief Summary: A major goal in public health is to find effective, feasible and simple programs for overweight prevention among children. This controlled intervention study evaluates a simple environmental and behavioral modification for its efficacy in preventing overweight of children in the school setting. The intervention strategy focuses solely on the promotion of drinking tap water. The study was conducted in 32 elementary schools including about 3000 children in two German cities over 1 school year.

Detailed Description: Soft drinks and other caloric beverages are supposed to be involved in the development of overweight and obesity in children. The intervention strategy of our study was to promote water consumption by facilitating access to tap water in schools assuming a concomitant decrease in caloric soft drinks at least at school. The environmental modification of installing a water dispenser at school and delivering a special bottle to each child in the intervention schools was supported by a few educational lessons. These lessons were held by the class teachers who received a prepared 6-hour curriculum dealing with the importance of water for the body and of water intake. For the study 17 randomly selected schools were assigned to the intervention group, 15 schools to the control group that did not receive any intervention. Body weight and height to calculate BMI as primary outcome were assessed at baseline and after the intervention period of 1 school year. As secondary outcome drinking and physical activity habits were evaluated at baseline and after the intervention. The water flow of the dispenser was measured at regular intervals. In addition, data of process evaluation was collected to measure acceptance and feasibility of the intervention in the school setting.

To analyze the efficacy of this primarily environmental and behavioral intervention, incidence and prevalence was compared between intervention and control group.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

Exclusion Criteria

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Intervention group	environmental and behavioral change	Intervention schools received water dispensers, drinking bottles and lessons as intervention.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Overweight	one school year	Prevalence of overweight defined acording to the criteria of the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Intake of Drinks	one school year
Physical Activity and Inactivity	one school year
Water Flow of the Water Dispensers	one school year
Parameters of Process Evaluation (Acceptance, Feasibility)	1,5 years