Reducing obesity in early childhood: results from Romp & Chomp, an Australian community-wide intervention program123

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Background: There is growing evidence that community-based interventions can reduce childhood obesity in older children.

Objective: We aimed to determine the effectiveness of the Romp & Chomp intervention in reducing obesity and promoting healthy eating and active play in children aged 0–5 y.

Design: Romp & Chomp was a community-wide, multisetting, multistrategy intervention conducted in Australia from 2004 to 2008. The intervention occurred in a large regional city (Geelong) with a target group of 12,000 children and focused on community capacity building and environmental (political, sociocultural, and physical) changes to increase healthy eating and active play in early-childhood care and educational settings. The evaluation was repeat cross-sectional with a quasiexperimental design and comparison sample. Main outcome measures were body mass index (BMI), standardized BMI (zBMI; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2000 reference charts), and prevalence of overweight/obesity and obesity-related behaviors in children aged 2 and 3.5 y.

Results: After the intervention there was a significantly lower mean weight, BMI, and zBMI in the 3.5-y-old subsample and a significantly lower prevalence of overweight/obesity in both the 2- and 3.5-y-old subsamples (by 2.5 and 3.4 percentage points, respectively) than in the comparison sample (a difference of 0.7 percentage points; P < 0.05) compared with baseline values. Intervention child-behavioral data showed a significantly lower intake of packaged snacks (by 0.23 serving), fruit juice (0.52 serving), and cordial (0.43 serving) than that in the comparison sample (all P < 0.05).

Conclusion: A community-wide multisetting, multistrategy intervention in early-childhood settings can reduce childhood obesity and improve young children’s diets. This trial was registered with the Australian Clinical Trials Registry at anzctr.org.au as ACTRN12607000374460.

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1

From the WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention (AMdS-S MN FdG LC RB NRBAS)the School of Psychology (PK) Deakin University Geelong Australia; The School of MedicinePublic Health University of Newcastle Newcastle Australia (ACB); the City of Greater Geelong Geelong Australia (MC);the Oral Health Services Barwon Health Newcomb Australia (MS and SS).

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Partly supported by the Departments of Human Services and Education and Early Childhood Development, the City of Greater Geelong, Geelong, Australia; Barwon Health, Newcomb, Australia; Deakin University, Geelong, Australia; Leisure Networks Association, Geelong, Australia; and the Department of Health and Ageing, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, Australia. Also partly supported by a VicHealth fellowship (ACB and AMdS-S) and by an Australian Research Council Australian Postgraduate Award (MN). Substantial in-kind contributions and resources were also provided by these organizations and many other organizations, particularly Dental Health Services Victoria and Kids—Go For Your Life. A total of 111,200 Australian dollars was available for intervention implementation in addition to the substantial in-kind support from all partner organizations (in the form of resources, staff, project workers, infrastructure and access to data and services, etc). In addition to support, Deakin University also provided training and evaluation for the project.

3

Address correspondence to AM de Silva-Sanigorski, WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, Deakin University, 1 Gheringhap Street, Geelong, Victoria 3217, Australia. E-mail: [email protected].

Copyright © 2010 American Society for Nutrition. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.