Effect of nutrition education and traditional game-based physical activity interventions, on lipid profile improvement in overweight and obese children in West Java Indonesia

Abstract

Background/objectives: One ongoing effort to curtail dyslipidemia in school children is through lifestyle intervention. This study analyzes outcomes of the intervention of nutrition education and Javanese traditional game-based physical activity, on lipid profiles of overweight and obese children.

Subjects/methods: The experimental study consisted of three steps: data collection (October to December 2016), intervention processes (January to March 2017), and final report preparation (April to May 2017). This was a split-plot block study, enrolling a total of 72 subjects. Traditional game intervention (12 meetings) and nutrition education (9 meetings) was carried out within 3 months with material related to obesity.

Results: Our results showed no decrease in the levels of total cholesterol in the group receiving nutrition education (rise by 1.56 mg/dL), but when compared to subjects without intervention, total cholesterol levels experienced was increased. The group which did not receive physical activity showed increase in the total cholesterol, whereas the traditional game intervention group showed a decrease of 0.05 mg/dL total cholesterol at the end of the intervention. Nutrition education and physical activity interventions did not influence any reduction in the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, but rather showed a tendency to increase at the end of the intervention. However, the increase in LDL-c levels in the traditional game group was lower than in other intervention groups. Duncan's test indicated that the effect of nutrition education and physical activity interventions did not differ from the cut-off values of LDL-C and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

Conclusions: Total cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the traditional game group tended to decrease at the end of the intervention, but the results did not differ much from other intervention groups. We deduce that nutrition education and traditional game-based physical activity interventions are not capable of improving blood lipid profiles in overweight and obese children within 3 months. It is necessary to increase the time of physical activity intervention to maintain the lipid profile in another study.

Keywords: HDL-LDL; Health education; physical activity; primary school.