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

Overview

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.

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.

Conditions

Interventions

Eligibility

Outcomes