Objective The intergrated intervention on obesity-related behaviors of primary school pupils, derived from health promotion strategies and combined with the school-family-community cooperative module, was studied to assess its feasibility and effectiveness.
Methods Two urban schools which were compatible to the average economic condition and teaching level of Qingpu district were selected for cluster sampling. A total of 466 pupils at grade 3 were investigated. Among them, 264 were from the intervened school and 202 were from the control one. A structured questionnaire was designed to investigate the participants' knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP)on obesity control. Meanwhile, the physical exams were conducted to obtain the data of the participants, including height, weight, glucose, total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Based on the investigation, a school-family-community cooperative module was adopted to the intervention group with measures such as health education, balanced diet, enhanced physical activities employed. However, the control group carried no intervention.
Results The cross-sectional survey showed that before the intervention:(1)Pupils had limited knowledge on obesity control. (2)The main risk factors of obesity were "preference for sweet food", "time for watching TV every day", "obesity history of parents", and "overweight at birth". (3)The survey showed no statistical significance of differences in the rates of obese pupils and glucose abnomality between the intervention group and control group. The mean value of TG and the abnormal rate in the control group was higher than that in the in tervention group (P < 0.05), while other blood fat parameters showed no significant differences. One year after intervention, the findings showed:(1) The rate of obesity was reported a slight decrease in the intervention group, and was slightly lower than that of the control group, but there was no statistic significance of difference between two groups (P > 0.05); (2)Changes of indices:the blood biochemical parameters reported no obvious change except the decreases in the abnormality and LDL in the intervention group. Except for cholesterol, all blood fat parameters reported obvious increases in the control group; (3)Change of KAP on obesity control:the awareness rate showed a clear increase in the intervented group after intervention, and was obviously higher than that of the control group (P < 0.01). The study showed pupils had changed their attitudes to obesity control greatly and improved their habits of diet and physical activity to a certain extent.
Conclusion The intervention has been proved feasible, effective and applicable to the promotion and scaling-up in the communities.
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