A School- and Home-Based Intervention to Improve Adolescents’ Physical Activity and Healthy Eating: A Pilot Study

Abstract

This study evaluated feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a 12-week Guys/Girls Opt for Activities for Life (GOAL) intervention on 10- to 13-year-old adolescents' body mass index (BMI), percent body fat, physical activity (PA), diet quality, and psychosocial perceptions related to PA and healthy eating. Parent-adolescent dyads from two schools were enrolled. Schools were assigned to either GOAL (38 dyads) or control (43 dyads) condition. The intervention included an after-school club for adolescents 2 days/week, parent-adolescent dyad meeting, and parent Facebook group. Intervention adolescents had greater autonomous motivation for PA and self-efficacy for healthy eating than control adolescents (both p < .05). Although between-group differences were not significant, close-to-moderate effect sizes resulted for accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous PA and diet quality measured via 24-hr dietary recall ( d = .46 and .44, respectively). A trivial effect size occurred for percent body fat ( d = -.10). No differences emerged for BMI. Efficacy testing with a larger sample may be warranted.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of school-based interventions with health education to reduce body mass index in adolescents aged 10 to 19 years

“…Various creative methods have been used to engage adolescents in the studies in this review, such as board games [45], digital components (online counselling, SMS messaging) [36,37,40,55,57,59,65,66] and retreat days [55]. A recent systematic review evaluated the effectiveness of digital interventions in improving diet quality and increasing physical activity in adolescents, suggesting that significant behaviour change can be achieved when health education, goal setting, selfmonitoring and parental involvement are included (mainly using web-based platforms, followed by text messages, and games) [76].…”

“…We identified 39 papers, based on 33 studies . Six studies recruited adolescent girls only [36,40,44,47,61,63] one adolescent boys only [42] and one study included parent-student dyads [66]. Most of the studies (n = 27) focused on adolescents aged 10-14 years [34, 36-42, 44-48, 50, 52, 54, 56-66], and six recruited participants from high schools/secondary schools without defining an age range [35,43,49,51,53,55].…”

“…Most interventions were delivered by teachers (n = 22) [34-42, 45, 46, 48-50, 52-54, 57, 59, 61, 62] followed by researchers [35,55,56,58,60,[63][64][65], school nurses [44,47] and in others a school project officer and physical education teacher [43] or project managers [66].…”

“…Finally, three of the studies only provided information to parents [37,43,53]. Parental involvement was a key component of the Guys/ Girls Opt for Activities for Life (GOAL) intervention [66] which included parentadolescent dyads for group meetings targeting selfefficacy, social support and motivation. The meetings aimed to assist parents in supporting students' physical activity and healthy eating habits through discussion on behavioural strategies as well as healthy cooking sessions.…”

“…The modules also included specific goal-setting and action planning with normative and comparative (with peers) feedback. Three studies also used social media (such as Facebook) to provide a platform for communication with the researcher (who delivered the intervention) [64], information on sessions [64], and weekly Facebook participation for parents in the GOAL programme [66]. Another intervention [65] used a social-network based eHealth intervention to improve diet and physical activity habits.…”