The Impact of School-Based Intervention for 9-13-year-old School Children with Overweight and Obesity: Nutrition Knowledge, Attitudes, Self-Efficacy, Fruit and Vegetable Intake, and Anthropometry
Trial Snapshot
- Phase
- Not Applicable
- Status
- Completed
- Enrollment
- 403
- Locations
- 1
- Primary Endpoint
- Nutrition Knowledge and Self-Efficacy
Study Overview
Brief Summary
Childhood obesity is a major issue for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Interventions modifying people's nutritional behavior and changing their dietary habits can potentially address this problem. This study assessed the effectiveness of the 6-month school-based nutritional educational intervention on fruit and vegetable intake, nutrition knowledge, anthropometric measures, and practice, attitude, and self-efficacy measures.
Detailed Description
The problem of childhood obesity is a critical issue for the UAE. Findings of recent studies illustrate that nutritional interventions seeking to modify people's nutritional behavior and change their dietary habits have the potential to address this problem. This article reports the results of the study that was dedicated to the influence of the school-based nutritional educational intervention on fruit and vegetable intake, anthropometric measures, practice, attitude, self-efficacy, and knowledge scores of schoolchildren. The intervention was carried out among 9-13-year-old schoolchildren at public schools from Dubai and Sharjah (n=403). The sample included three groups, including the control group (n=114), Intervention Group 1 (n=148), and Intervention Group 2 (n=141). The control group was exposed to a conventional curriculum on healthy nutrition. Group 1 participated in the intervention involving children, and Group 2 participated in the intervention involving students, peers, and parents.
Study Design
- Study Type
- Interventional
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Intervention Model
- Parallel
- Primary Purpose
- Treatment
- Masking
- None
Eligibility Criteria
- Ages
- 9 Years to 13 Years (Child)
- Sex
- All
- Accepts Healthy Volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria
- •WHO BMI-for-age growth charts, Students with BMI from the 85th to the 95th percentile were categorized as "overweight," and those who were above the 95th percentile were categorized as "obese"
- •Attending Government school.
- •Within Grades 6-
- •Live in Dubai or Sharjah
- •Female and male students
Exclusion Criteria
- •Students with BMI below the 85th percentile for the WHO BMI-for-age growth charts.
- •Not attending a government school
- •Living in another emirate (not Dubai or Sharjah)
Arms & Interventions
students one-one
- During the intervention, 30-minute in person sessions and lectures are held on a one-on-one basis .
- Lectures were conducted daily for five days during the first month of the intervention
- The students were exposed to the school nutrition education curriculum, which may also be considered an intervention as it introduced students to new nutrition knowledge. The school nutrition education curriculum presented general information about nutrition in accordance with official guidelines issued by the UAE Ministry of Education. Topics covered included the dangers of obesity, the prevalence of obesity in the UAE, and potentially effective ways to prevent this problem, the information in this program was broad and did not provide practical recommendations to students except for a set of general suggestions.
- The topics covered included a healthy eating lifestyle, energy balance, food portion control, healthy snacking, the importance of physical activity and healthy eating, dietary
Intervention: Anthropometric measurements (Other)
students one-one
- During the intervention, 30-minute in person sessions and lectures are held on a one-on-one basis .
- Lectures were conducted daily for five days during the first month of the intervention
- The students were exposed to the school nutrition education curriculum, which may also be considered an intervention as it introduced students to new nutrition knowledge. The school nutrition education curriculum presented general information about nutrition in accordance with official guidelines issued by the UAE Ministry of Education. Topics covered included the dangers of obesity, the prevalence of obesity in the UAE, and potentially effective ways to prevent this problem, the information in this program was broad and did not provide practical recommendations to students except for a set of general suggestions.
- The topics covered included a healthy eating lifestyle, energy balance, food portion control, healthy snacking, the importance of physical activity and healthy eating, dietary
Intervention: Questionnaire (Other)
students one-one
- During the intervention, 30-minute in person sessions and lectures are held on a one-on-one basis .
- Lectures were conducted daily for five days during the first month of the intervention
- The students were exposed to the school nutrition education curriculum, which may also be considered an intervention as it introduced students to new nutrition knowledge. The school nutrition education curriculum presented general information about nutrition in accordance with official guidelines issued by the UAE Ministry of Education. Topics covered included the dangers of obesity, the prevalence of obesity in the UAE, and potentially effective ways to prevent this problem, the information in this program was broad and did not provide practical recommendations to students except for a set of general suggestions.
- The topics covered included a healthy eating lifestyle, energy balance, food portion control, healthy snacking, the importance of physical activity and healthy eating, dietary
Intervention: Educational sessions (Other)
Peers
- 30-minute in person sessions were introduced to all the school children, and 10-minute question-and-answer sections were held at the end of each lesson to support knowledge acquisition.
- Lectures were conducted daily for five days in the first month of the study.
- The students were exposed to the school nutrition education curriculum, which may also be considered an intervention as it introduced students to new nutrition knowledge. The school nutrition education curriculum presented general information about nutrition in accordance with official guidelines issued by the UAE Ministry of Education. Topics covered included the dangers of obesity, the prevalence of obesity in the UAE, and potentially effective ways to prevent this problem, the information in this program was broad and did not provide practical recommendations to students except for a set of general suggestions.
- The topics covered included a healthy eating lifestyle,
Intervention: Educational sessions (Other)
Control group
The students in the control group did not receive any nutrition intervention except for the usual school curriculum-based nutrition education program. Participants in the intervention and control groups were recruited from different sections of the same schools.
parents
- 30-minute in person sessions and 10-minute question-and-answer sections were held at the end of each lesson to support knowledge acquisition.
- Lectures were conducted daily for five days in the first month of the study.
Intervention: Educational sessions (Other)
Outcomes
Primary Outcomes
Nutrition Knowledge and Self-Efficacy
Time Frame: 6 months
- Change in students' knowledge and self-efficacy scores from baseline values in overweight and obese UAE students aged 9-13 using a validated questionnaire(Arab Teens Lifestyle Questionnaire). The statistical analyses were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software, and the IBM, USA computer software (version 29). Likert scales, were expressed as weighted mean ± SD. An independent t-test (parametric test) was used to analyze the effect of 2-level qualitative variables on quantitative variables, and one way ANOVA (parametric test) was used to analyze the effect of \>2-level qualitative variables on quantitative variables in each questionnaire section
Secondary Outcomes
- Anthropometric Data(6 months)
Investigators
Sara Zuarub
Principal Investigator
United Arab Emirates University