Background: We aimed to examine whether the Healthy Children, Healthy Families, and Healthy Communities Program, consisting of multi-level strategies for obesity prevention tailoring the context of socioeconomically vulnerable children based on an ecological perspective, would be effective on improving their healthy lifestyle behaviors and obesity status. Methods: Participants were 104 children (and 59 parents) enrolled in public welfare systems in Seoul, South Korea. Based on a cluster-randomized controlled trial (no. ISRCTN11347525), eight centers were randomly assigned to intervention (four centers, 49 children, 27 parents) versus control groups (four centers, 55 children, 32 parents). Multi-level interventions of child-, parent-, and center-level strategies were conducted for 12 weeks. Children’s healthy lifestyle behaviors and obesity status were assessed as daily recommended levels and body mass index ≥85th percentile, respectively. Parents’ parenting behaviors were measured by the Family Nutrition and Physical Activity scale. Results: Compared to the control group, the intervention group showed significant improvements in total composite scores of healthy-lifestyle behaviors—including 60-min of moderate physical activity—but not in obesity status among children. Moreover, the intervention group showed significant improvements in parenting behaviors among parents. Conclusion: The multi-level strategies for obesity prevention based on an ecological perspective may be effective for promoting healthy lifestyles among socioeconomically vulnerable children.
This study identified predictors of appointment adherence and examined its impacts on improvements in metabolic risk factors in a free city-wide cardiovascular disease prevention program in Seoul, South Korea. Data of 8251 citizens with metabolic syndrome were used. Appointment adherers were defined as having 70% or higher adherence rates, that is, 3 or more visits. Of the 8251 citizens, 17.6% were appointment adherers. Appointment adherers were significantly more likely to be older, low-income earners, nonsmokers, and nonobese than appointment nonadherers. Moreover, appointment adherers, compared with nonadherers, showed significant improvements in waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, but not in fasting glucose and triglycerides. Designing strategies for increasing appointment adherence to a free city-wide cardiovascular disease prevention program is essential to improve health outcomes, especially targeting population groups with young age, high-income, current smoking, or obesity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.