Objective: Examine dietary intake (DI), anthropometric measures, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and nutritional knowledge (NK) of school children. Design: Cross-sectional study. Food Diary, NK questionnaire and 550m walk/run test were used to assess DI, NK and CRF respectively. Blood pressure (BP) was also taken and body mass index (BMI) and waist to height ratio (WHtR) were calculated. Setting: Two primary schools, Cork, Ireland. Subjects: Six (n = 49, age 5.9 ± 0.6 years) and ten (n = 52, age 9.8 ± 0.5 years) year olds. Results: Intakes of fruit and vegetables, fibre, calcium and iron were sub-optimal. Unhealthy snacks and saturated fat intakes were higher than recommended. A total of 24.4% of six year olds and 35.4% of ten year olds were classified as ‘fast’. Furthermore, 45.9% of six and ten year olds had high-normal BP and 27.9% had high BP. NK was negatively correlated with sugar intake (r = -0.321, p = 0.044) in ten year olds. WHtR was negatively correlated with servings of vegetables in six year olds (r = -0.377, p = 0.014). For ten year olds, there was a positive correlation between WHtR and run score (r = 0.350, p = 0.014) and BMI and run score (r = 0.482, p = 0.001). Conclusion: This study highlights, for the first time, DI, NK, CRF, BP and anthropometric data for Irish children and their potential combined effect on overall health. Study results suggest preventive initiatives are needed, in children as young as 6 years of age.

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Objective:To assess the effectiveness of a nutrition and physical activity (PA) intervention on dietary intake (DI), nutritional knowledge (NK), blood pressure (BP), anthropometric measures and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) of schoolchildren.Design:Longitudinal study. DI, NK, BMI, waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), BP and CRF were all measured/calculated prior to (October 2014) and at the end of (June 2016) intervention delivery.Setting:Two primary schools (one intervention and one control), Cork, Ireland.Participants:Six-year-olds (n 49; mean age = 6·09 (sd 0·33) years) and 10-year-olds (n 52; mean age = 9·90 (sd 0·37) years).Results:There was a large and a moderate statistically significant difference between the change in systolic (P = 0·005, effect size (ES) = 0·165) and diastolic BP (P = 0·023, ES = 0·116), respectively, for 10-year-olds in the intervention and control groups. There was also a large statistically significant difference between the change in WHtR (P = 0·0005, ES = 0·386) and a moderate statistically significant difference between the change in NK (P = 0·027, ES = 0·107) for 10-year-olds in the intervention and control groups. There was a large statistically significant difference between the change in percentage of energy from protein in 10-year-old females (P = 0·021, ES = 0·276) in the intervention and control groups.Conclusions:Project Spraoi is Ireland’s first ever school-based intervention that has been evaluated and proven effective in improving DI, NK, WHtR and BP in older primary-school children in one intervention school.

Overweight and obesity are now the most common childhood disorders in Europe. These disorders can cause social, psychological and physiological health problems in childhood and are linked to obesity and poor health outcomes later in life. The present review will examine the importance of the preventive intervention setting; including family based programmes, primary care settings, community settings and primary schools. The review also identifies the most effective components of obesity prevention interventions designed for children, including healthy eating and physical activity (PA). Evidence suggests that out of all the intervention settings, obesity prevention programmes are the most successful when delivered in the primary school setting. Furthermore, there is strong evidence to show that combined dietary and PA interventions are the most effective components to include in such strategies but these programmes tend to be delivered over short time frames. Definite conclusions as to the effectiveness of such programmes at preventing overweight and/or obesity are therefore not available. Without long-term delivery of these interventions, overweight, obesity and unhealthy behaviours are at risk of continuing, which could have both immediate and long term health implications.

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