Publication:

Effectiveness of healthy eating and active lifestyle intervention program on physiological parameters among children with obesity

Background The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of Healthy Eating and Active Lifestyle Intervention Program (HEALIP) on physiological parameters among children with obesity.

Methods True experimental research design was adopted with 200 children between the age group of 12-18 years who met the inclusion criteria from four different schools in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Samples were allocated into experimental group (n=100) and control group (n=100) by random sampling technique. Children were screened for weight, height, body mass index, and blood pressure were measured before as well as after the intervention. Healthy eating and active lifestyle intervention program were administered for the experimental group for 16 weeks, whereas the control group received routine practices. Post-test was conducted at the end of the 16th week for the both groups. Data were analysed using SPSS.

Results There was a difference in the pre-test systolic blood pressure (128.4±1.3) and post-test (118.6±0.7) and in the pre-test diastolic blood pressure (78.8±0.6) and post-test (72.8±0.6) mean value in the experimental group and found statistically significant at the level of p <0.001. It was also observed the significant difference between the experimental and control group.

Conclusions The finding of the study concluded that healthy eating and active lifestyle intervention program has proved the beneficial effect in maintaining the physiological parameters. Hence, it was concluded that there is a need to educate the children about the obesity and its complications. The study findings ensure that periodic monitoring of the basic physiological parameters among obese children will prevent the furthermore complications.