Prevention of mildly overweight children from development of more overweight condition.
BACKGROUND
A follow-up study has reported that not only highly obese but also mildly obese children are becoming heavier during the elementary school children. Then we determined the effect of programs for the screening and treatment of overweight elementary school children whether the programs prevented mildly overweight children from development of more overweight condition.


METHODS
Subjects were 40 overweight children who participated in both screening and treatment programs. As controls, only 240 children who participated in the screening program were used. The mean observation periods of the subjects and controls were 14 and 12 months, respectively.


RESULTS
In both groups, older and heavier children significantly decreased their indices of overweight (percent relative body weight; %RBW), indicating that mildly obese children worsened their %RBW. However, the incidence of children who worsened their %RBW was significantly lower in the subjects (5 of 40) than in the controls (133 of 240) (P < 0.0001). Finally, the subjects significantly reduced their mean %RBW (P < 0.0001) and the controls significantly worsened it (P = 0.0093).


CONCLUSIONS
The treatment program was found important because it prevents mildly overweight children who may worsen their overweight indices without the program from developing more overweight condition.
Yoshinaga
Masao
M
Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Kagoshima University, Sakuragaoka 8-35-1, Kagoshima 890-8520, Japan. m-yoshi@m2.kufm.kagoshima-u.ac.jp
Sameshima
Koji
K
Miyata
Koichiro
K
Hashiguchi
Jun
J
Imamura
Masato
M
D001794:Blood Pressure; D001835:Body Weight; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002784:Cholesterol / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000628:therapy; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D002784:Cholesterol