Healthy Lifestyle Promotion Program in Communities From the Yaqui Valley

Overview

The aim is to evaluate the change in indicators of lifestyle and its effect on cardiometabolic biomarkers as a response to an integrative mother-child intervention to promote healthy lifestyles and prevent food insecurity and child malnutrition in vulnerable communities in the Yaqui Valley, Sonora, Mexico. The intervention consists in a program including nutrition education and physical activity training, with a total duration of 6 months. The proposal addresses the problem in an integrative and non-conventional way, generating new multifactorial knowledge of cardiometabolic and behavioral markers, and their relationship with each other, helping to reduce family food insecurity and improving lifestyle and health, and to support vulnerable families in achieving social justice in the field of nutrition.

At present, the development and implementation of interventions in low-income families linking child malnutrition and food insecurity with cardiometabolic diseases, which are fundamental national health problems, is a priority. Educating mothers in this context is a fundamental tool for the prevention and early detection of nutritional diseases, since they are the main caregivers at home, and play a unique role as agents of change and promoters of family well-being. In addition, by training a child in healthy lifestyles, a healthy adult is being developed for the future, who in turn will raise healthy families. The aim of the study is to evaluate the change in indicators of lifestyle, such as diet and physical activity, and its effect on cardiometabolic biomarkers in response to an integrative mother-child intervention to promote healthy lifestyles and to prevent food insecurity and child malnutrition in vulnerable communities in the Yaqui Valley in Sonora, Mexico. The intervention consists in promoting healthy lifestyles for mothers and children in a 6-month program including: food-nutrition education to prevent child malnutrition and cardiometabolic diseases, promotion of planned physical activity, education for child health and cooking workshops. The proposal aims to address the problem in an integrative and non-conventional way, generating new knowledge from the multifactorial field of family, cardiometabolic and behavior, and it will be carried out in vulnerable rural communities. The culture and traditions of the region will be considered in the intervention so that families empower themselves and manage to develop and adopt healthy lifestyles within home, and thereby influencing the well-being and social justice of vulnerable communities. The proposal entails the participation of the mother-child dyad, evaluating the basal risk conditions, and the subsequent change in response to the intervention. This family intervention represents a sustainable community model that incorporates health and combats food insecurity.