Positive changes of dietary habits after an outpatient training program for overweight children

A combination of physical exercise, a course of nutrition, and a behavior therapy are recommended for the treatment of childhood obesity. Here, long-term effects of the diet counseling with an outpatient training program for overweight children were evaluated and compared with an untreated control group (CG). The study sample comprises 33 obese participants of the “Obeldicks” program (intervention group [IG]) and 43 overweight participants of the observational Dortmund Nutritional and Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed Study (CG), both groups aged 5 to 14 years. Every participant conducted 2 3-day weighed dietary records, the second record 1 year after the first (pre- vs posttreatment). At pretreatment, IG had higher body weight than the CG (SD score of body mass index [BMI], 2.34 and 1.65, respectively) but lower reported energy and carbohydrate intakes than the CG, mainly because of a lower intake of added sugars. At posttreatment, covariance analysis showed a significant intervention effect for body weight, BMI (P < .0001), and SD score of BMI (P = .0135). An intervention effect could also be shown for macronutrient patterns (% of energy intake) with increased intakes of carbohydrates (P < .01) and lower intakes of fat (P < .001). Although total food intake and consumption of food groups remained constant in IG and CG, food selection showed an intervention effect with respect to increased percentage of low-fat dairy (P < .01) and low-energy beverages (P < .05) in the IG. In conclusion, 1-year changes of macronutrient pattern and food selection in the IG compared with the nontreated CG emphasizes the importance of diet counseling in the treatment of obesity.