Abstract

SILVA, Catarina Santos; TEIXEIRA, Vítor Hugo  and  CARVALHO, Pedro. The Effect of a Nutrition Education Intervention on School-age Boys Attending a Sports Camp. Nutrícias [online]. 2013, n.19, pp.16-20. ISSN 2182-7230.

Introduction: Changes in dietary and lifestyle patterns worldwide have led to an increased prevalence of childhood obesity, becoming imperative to explore effective strategies to both prevent and treat this disease. Objectives: This non-randomized controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of a short-term nutrition education intervention (4 hours, distributed over 5 days) on improving the dietary knowledge, diet quality and Body Mass Index-for-age z-score of 26 school-age boys (6 to 11 years old) attending a holiday sports camp. Methodology: Both intervention (n=26) and control (n=39) groups were evaluated immediately before and 6 weeks after the intervention (Body Mass Index and KIDMED were evaluated for both groups; while nutrition knowledge questionnaire was only for intervention group). Results: In the intervention group, a significant decrease was observed in Body Mass Index z-score (p Conclusions: Holiday sports camps with nutrition education interventions can be a promising strategy to combat childhood obesity.

Keywords : Childhood obesity; Nutrition education; Nutrition knowledge; Dietary quality; Holiday sports camp.

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