Four years of universal prevention in primary schools: effects on BMI and motor abilities in childhood

Objectives: Obesity in childhood is increasing worldwide. To combat overweight and obesity in childhood, the school-based CHILT project combines health education and physical activity. This paper examines the effect of intervention on the body mass index (BMI) and motor abilities after nearly 4 years in 12 randomly selected primary schools compared with 5 randomly selected control schools. Methods: The anthropometric data were taken, BMI was calculated. Gross motor development was determined by a body coordination test (KTK) and endurance performance by a 6-minute run. Results: No difference in the prevalence of overweight and obesity was found between the intervention (IS) and control schools (CS) either at baseline or final data (each P > 0.05). There was no difference between the result of the endurance performance and the complete KTK, but the performance in lateral jumping and balancing backwards was better in the IS than in the CS (P = 0.005; P = 0.007), adjusted for age and test result of the entrance examination, gender and BMI-classification at final examination. Overweight and obese children produced significantly lower scores in all tasks than their counterparts (each P < 0.05). Conclusions: Preventive intervention in primary schools offers an effective means to improve coordinative skills in children, but overweight and obese children always produce significantly lower results. To improve motor skills in overweight and obese children and to prevent overweight and obesity, selective family- and school-based measures are necessary and parents should be included.