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Testing the effect of summer camp on excess summer weight gain in youth from low-income households: a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Children from racial and ethnic minority groups, low-income households, and those with overweight or obesity gain more weight during the summer than the school year. Summer day camps, which offer routine opportunities for physical activity and regular meal and snack times, have potential...

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Autores principales: Evans, E. Whitney, Wing, Rena R., Pierre, Denise F., Howie, Whitney C., Brinker, Morgan, Jelalian, Elissa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670692/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33203385
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09806-y
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author Evans, E. Whitney
Wing, Rena R.
Pierre, Denise F.
Howie, Whitney C.
Brinker, Morgan
Jelalian, Elissa
author_facet Evans, E. Whitney
Wing, Rena R.
Pierre, Denise F.
Howie, Whitney C.
Brinker, Morgan
Jelalian, Elissa
author_sort Evans, E. Whitney
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Children from racial and ethnic minority groups, low-income households, and those with overweight or obesity gain more weight during the summer than the school year. Summer day camps, which offer routine opportunities for physical activity and regular meal and snack times, have potential to mitigate excess weight gain. This randomized controlled trial was done to determine the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of summer camp in preventing excess summer weight gain among youth from low-income households. METHODS: Children, ages 6 to 12 years, were randomized to attend 8-weeks of summer day camp (CAMP) or to experience an unstructured summer as usual (SAU) in 2017–2018. Primary feasibility outcomes included retention, engagement and completion of midsummer measures. Secondary outcomes included changes in BMIz, engagement in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behavior, and diet quality and energy intake from the school year to summer. Multivariable linear mixed models were used to assess group differences. RESULTS: Ninety-four participants were randomized to CAMP (n = 46) or SAU (n = 48), of whom 93.0 and 91.6% completed end of school and end of summer assessments, respectively. While CAMP participants attended only 50% of camp days offered, on average, they lost − 0.03 BMIz units while those in SAU gained 0.07 BMIz units over the summer (b = 0.10; p = .02). Group differences in change in energy intake from the school year to summer were borderline significant, as energy intake remained relatively unchanged in CAMP participants but increased among participants in SAU (p = 0.07). CONCLUSIONS: Randomizing children to attend summer day camp or experience an unstructured summer as usual was effective in this low-income sample. Our findings support the potential for summer camps in mitigating excess summer weight gain. A larger randomized trial is needed explore efficacy, cost-effectiveness and longer-term effects of attending summer camp on weight and weight-related behaviors. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov Registration: NCT04085965 (09/2019, retrospective registration).
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spelling pubmed-76706922020-11-18 Testing the effect of summer camp on excess summer weight gain in youth from low-income households: a randomized controlled trial Evans, E. Whitney Wing, Rena R. Pierre, Denise F. Howie, Whitney C. Brinker, Morgan Jelalian, Elissa BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Children from racial and ethnic minority groups, low-income households, and those with overweight or obesity gain more weight during the summer than the school year. Summer day camps, which offer routine opportunities for physical activity and regular meal and snack times, have potential to mitigate excess weight gain. This randomized controlled trial was done to determine the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of summer camp in preventing excess summer weight gain among youth from low-income households. METHODS: Children, ages 6 to 12 years, were randomized to attend 8-weeks of summer day camp (CAMP) or to experience an unstructured summer as usual (SAU) in 2017–2018. Primary feasibility outcomes included retention, engagement and completion of midsummer measures. Secondary outcomes included changes in BMIz, engagement in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behavior, and diet quality and energy intake from the school year to summer. Multivariable linear mixed models were used to assess group differences. RESULTS: Ninety-four participants were randomized to CAMP (n = 46) or SAU (n = 48), of whom 93.0 and 91.6% completed end of school and end of summer assessments, respectively. While CAMP participants attended only 50% of camp days offered, on average, they lost − 0.03 BMIz units while those in SAU gained 0.07 BMIz units over the summer (b = 0.10; p = .02). Group differences in change in energy intake from the school year to summer were borderline significant, as energy intake remained relatively unchanged in CAMP participants but increased among participants in SAU (p = 0.07). CONCLUSIONS: Randomizing children to attend summer day camp or experience an unstructured summer as usual was effective in this low-income sample. Our findings support the potential for summer camps in mitigating excess summer weight gain. A larger randomized trial is needed explore efficacy, cost-effectiveness and longer-term effects of attending summer camp on weight and weight-related behaviors. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov Registration: NCT04085965 (09/2019, retrospective registration). BioMed Central 2020-11-17 /pmc/articles/PMC7670692/ /pubmed/33203385 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09806-y Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Evans, E. Whitney
Wing, Rena R.
Pierre, Denise F.
Howie, Whitney C.
Brinker, Morgan
Jelalian, Elissa
Testing the effect of summer camp on excess summer weight gain in youth from low-income households: a randomized controlled trial
title Testing the effect of summer camp on excess summer weight gain in youth from low-income households: a randomized controlled trial
title_full Testing the effect of summer camp on excess summer weight gain in youth from low-income households: a randomized controlled trial
title_fullStr Testing the effect of summer camp on excess summer weight gain in youth from low-income households: a randomized controlled trial
title_full_unstemmed Testing the effect of summer camp on excess summer weight gain in youth from low-income households: a randomized controlled trial
title_short Testing the effect of summer camp on excess summer weight gain in youth from low-income households: a randomized controlled trial
title_sort testing the effect of summer camp on excess summer weight gain in youth from low-income households: a randomized controlled trial
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670692/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33203385
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09806-y
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