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Prospective BMI changes in preschool children are associated with parental characteristics and body weight perceptions: the ToyBox-study

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posted on 2022-06-24, 01:04 authored by Y Manios, Katrina LambertKatrina Lambert, E Karaglani, C Mavrogianni, LA Moreno, V Iotova, A Świąder-Leśniak, B Koletzko, G Cardon, O Androutsos, George MoschonisGeorge Moschonis, I de Bourdeaudhuij, MCA Paw, C Summerbell, T Lobstein, L Annemans, G Buijs, J Reilly, B Swinburn, D Ward, E Grammatikaki, C Katsarou, E Apostolidou, A Livaniou, K Lymperopoulou, E Efstathopoulou, CP Lambrinou, A Giannopoulou, E Siatitsa, E Argiri, K Maragkopoulou, A Douligeris, K Duvinage, S Ibrügger, A Strauß, B Herbert, J Birnbaum, A Payr, C Geyer, M de Craemer, E de Decker, S de Henauw, L Maes, C Vereecken, J van Assche, L Pil, S te Velde, T Mouratidou, J Fernandez, M Mesana, P de Miguel-Etayo, EM González-Gil, L Gracia-Marco, B Oves, A Yngve, S Kugelberg, C Lynch, A Mosdøl, BB Nilsen, H Moore, W Douthwaite, C Nixon, S Kreichauf, A Wildgruber, P Socha, Z Kulaga, K Zych, M Góźdź, B Gurzkowska, K Szott, M Lateva, N Usheva, S Galcheva, V Marinova, Z Radkova, N Feschieva, A Aikenhead, A Dorgelo, A Nethe, J Jansen, O Gmeiner, J Retterath, J Wildeis, A Günthersberger, L Gibson, C Voegele
Objective: To examine the effect of the intervention implemented in the ToyBox study on changes observed in age and sex specific BMI percentile and investigate the role of perinatal factors, parental perceptions and characteristics on this change. Design: A multicomponent, kindergarten-based, family-involved intervention with a cluster-randomized design. A standardized protocol was used to measure children’s body weight and height. Information was also collected from parents/caregivers via the use of validated questionnaires. Linear mixed effect models with random intercept for country, socioeconomic status and school were used. Setting: Selected preschools within the provinces of Oost-Flanders and West-Flanders (Belgium), Varna (Bulgaria), Bavaria (Germany), Attica (Greece), Mazowieckie (Poland) and Zaragoza (Spain). Participants: A sample of 6,268 pre-schoolers aged 3.5-5.5 (51.9% boys). Results: There was no intervention effect on the change in children’s BMI percentile. However, parents’ underestimation of their children’s actual weight status, parental overweight and mothers’ pre-pregnancy overweight/obesity were found to be significantly and independently associated with increases in children’s BMI percentile in multivariate modelling. Conclusion: Before or as part of the implementation of any childhood obesity intervention initiative, it is important to assist parents/caregivers to correctly perceive their own and their children’s weight status. Recognition of excessive weight by parents/caregivers can increase their readiness to change and as such facilitate higher adherence to favourable behavioural changes within the family.

Funding

The ToyBox-study was funded by the Seventh Framework Programme (CORDIS FP7) of the European Commission under grant agreement no 245200.

History

Publication Date

2022-04-26

Journal

Public Health Nutrition

Volume

25

Issue

6

Article Number

PII S1368980021001518

Pagination

11p. (p. 1552-1562)

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

ISSN

1368-9800

Rights Statement

© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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