Recording daily routines with guidance on healthy lifestyle to improve health parameters in children and their families

Abstract

Abstract--This study investigated the efficacy of using a diary to record daily routines, combined with guidance on healthy lifestyle (GHL) by a physical educator, on promoting changes in health parameters in children. Sixty-three children (10 ± 0.8 years) were allocated to one of the three following groups: a control group (CON, n = 18); a group that did not use the diary, but received GHL (G, n = 23); or a group that both used the diary and received GHL (DG, n = 22). Blood pressure, body composition, physical fitness tests (PF), physical activity levels (PAL), and dietary intake profiles were assessed in children and their parents before and after 2 months of intervention. The DG group improved their performance in PF, increased PAL, and reduced body fat (p < 0.05). Additionally, 56% of families from both DG and G reduced their consumption of unhealthy foods and 70,6% increased their consumption of healthy foods. Overall, it was concluded that 2 months of using a diary to record daily routines combined with GHL by a physical educator improved PAL, PF, body composition, and dietary intake profiles of children and their families.

I CINAPSE – I International Conference of Physical Activity and Health Promotion at School

“…This can be observed in the responses to the telephone survey by the parents or guardian, in which 46.5% of them considered themselves motivated to improve their habits after the child participated in the intervention (Table 4). This is corroborated by a study by Pereira et al (2016), where 25% of the parents started a physical activity practice after the child participated in intervention for 2 months at school, emphasizing the importance of interventions in childhood in partnership with family and school.…”

“…The navigation bar of the "TODDS KIDS" tool (URL: http:// tododiadivertidoes.wix.com/ toddskids) (Figure 2), provides access to: <Home>, <About us>, <Steps to health>, <Learning with stories>, <More> which give access to: <Videos>, <Also visit>, as well as <Contact us>, and the possibility of downloading the "Schedule/Agenda" created by Pereira et al (2016) on the <Monitoring Your Health> page. It was possible to verify that the videos attained 38.5% of the children's preference through the questionnaire applied after the session on the website, and whose contents in the form of cartoons referred to children obesity, healthy eating and games.…”