Nurse-Led Home Interventions Reduce TV Viewing Time And BMI In Kids

No proof that it makes a difference - except to the nurses who get paid.

Louise A Baur, Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Sydney's Medical School in Australia presented one of the world's first studies that examined obesity risk factors in very young children at the 19th European Congress on Obesity in Lyon, France.

The study demonstrated that mothers were able to reduce their child's body-mass index (BMI), TV-viewing time and improve their child's vegetable intake by the age of 2 years by participating in a nurse-led, home-based intervention.

In light of the well known fact that people in socially and economically disadvantaged parts of developed countries have a higher risk of obesity, and given that only few early childhood obesity prevention programs have been evaluated so far, the researchers decided to conduct a randomized controlled trial, called "Healthy Beginnings" in disadvantaged parts of Sydney between 2007 and 2010 and recruited a total of 667 first-time mothers and their infants.

The mothers and infants were split equally into an intervention and control group. Those in the intervention received eight home visits from specially trained community nurses who delivered a staged home-based intervention that started during the antenatal period, with the remaining seven to follow at 1, 3, 5, 9, 12, 18 and 24 months after the child was born, whilst those in the control group received no home visits. The timing of the visits was designed to coincide with early childhood developmental milestones, for instance introducing solid foods and transition to family meals.

The primary outcomes were determined as the children's BMI, infant feeding practices, and TV viewing time at the age of 2 years. The BMI was established by the community nurses, whilst the mothers of the children self-measured the other outcomes.

K-rap.