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New study on overweight children
BUSINESS WIRE, Mon 03 Mar 2008
After-school sports can be a fun and rewarding way for a child to work off steam following a day behind a desk. But children who stand to benefit the most from the increased exercise, those who are struggling with their weight, often avoid organized teams.
Now researchers and physicians at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and the Stanford University School of Medicine have found that creating teams composed exclusively of overweight children can slow their weight gain. The teams can also foster a newfound love of sports and physical activity that may launch them into a life of regular exercise. They need positive, supportive opportunities to do so.
They found that many children who participated in a six-month, "overweight only" soccer program went on to join other "regular" school teams, from boxing to tennis to flag football and, of course, soccer. That's a marked turnaround considering the reluctance of some participants to take that first step out onto the field.
The small pilot study was the first to investigate whether "overweight only" teams are a viable way to reduce weight gain. The trial pitted traditional classroom-based learning about nutrition and exercise, heavy on sitting and light on sweating, against active team participation that focused on building skills and positive reinforcement. The results will be published in the March 3 issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.
The researchers devised the Stanford Sports to Prevent Obesity Randomized Trial, or SPORT, after becoming frustrated with the increasing numbers of obese, physically inactive children they were seeing in their clinics. Although the children and their families clearly realized that exercise is an important way to control or slow weight gain, they were unable to incorporate it into their daily lives.
Beginning in April 2005, they recruited 21 overweight fourth- and fifth- graders at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in East Palo Alto, a low-income community comprising mostly racial and ethnic minorities, to participate in the six-month study. The children all had body-mass indexes at or above the 85th percentile for their gender and age. 14 of the students had never before been on a sports team. They were randomly assigned to either a co-ed soccer team that met three days a week, or to a weekly health-education group that taught the importance of healthy nutrition and exercise.
Parents of the nine participants assigned to the soccer team reported that their children felt more confident, comfortable and safe when playing with children of similar weight. The kids reported having fun, making friends and, a first for many, enjoying the camaraderie of a team. All nine of the soccer players also reduced their age- and gender-adjusted body-mass index after six months on the team, but only five of the 12 health-education participants had done so. The soccer players were also significantly more physically active than the education-only group.
The results of the study suggest that after-school sports teams comprised of overweight children may be a relatively easy way to teach new habits, control weight gain and encourage a lifelong interest in sports participation. They are now conducting a larger SPORT trial of nearly 100 children in Bay Area schools. Soccer is particularly well-suited for a variety of reasons: it doesn't require a lot of equipment, it's easy to learn, it's very active even for beginners and it's extremely popular in diverse communities. Providing the team sports at schools is also important.
The study was supported under a cooperative agreement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the Association of American Medical Colleges.
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