Effectiveness of the Healthy Lifestyles Programme (HeLP) to prevent obesity in UK primary-school children: a cluster randomised controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Although childhood overweight and obesity prevalence has increased substantially worldwide in the past three decades, scarce evidence exists for effective preventive strategies. We aimed to establish whether a school-based intervention for children aged 9-10 years would prevent excessive weight gain after 24 months.

Methods

This pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial of the Healthy Lifestyles Programme (HeLP), a school-based obesity prevention intervention, was done in 32 schools in southwest England. All state-run primary and junior schools in Devon and Plymouth (UK) with enough pupils for at least one year-5 class were eligible. Schools were assigned (1:1) using a computer-generated sequence to either intervention or control, stratified by the number of y

SUBMITTER: Lloyd J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5738974 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature