Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2018 May 24;18(1):658.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5569-4.

A 12-month follow-up of a mobile-based (mHealth) obesity prevention intervention in pre-school children: the MINISTOP randomized controlled trial

Christine Delisle Nyström  1   2 , Sven Sandin  3   4   5 , Pontus Henriksson  6   7 , Hanna Henriksson  7 , Ralph Maddison  8 , Marie Löf  6   9
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

A 12-month follow-up of a mobile-based (mHealth) obesity prevention intervention in pre-school children: the MINISTOP randomized controlled trial

Christine Delisle Nyström et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: To date, few mobile health (mHealth) interventions aimed at changing lifestyle behaviors have measured long term effectiveness. At the 6-month follow-up the MINISTOP trial found a statistically significant intervention effect for a composite score comprised of fat mass index (FMI) as well as dietary and physical activity variables; however, no intervention effect was observed for FMI. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate if the MINISTOP intervention 12-months after baseline measurements: (i) improved FMI and (ii) had a maintained effect on a composite score comprised of FMI and dietary and physical activity variables.

Methods: A two-arm parallel randomized controlled trial was conducted in 315 healthy 4.5 year old children between January 2014 and October 2015. Parents' of the participating children either received the MINISTOP intervention or a basic pamphlet on dietary and physical activity behaviors (control group). After 6 months, participants did not have access to the intervention content and were measured again 6 months later (i.e. the 12-month follow-up). The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was then used to examine differences between the groups.

Results: At the 12-month follow-up, no statistically significant difference was observed between the intervention and control groups for FMI (p = 0.57) and no maintained effect for the change in composite score was observed (mean ± standard deviation for the intervention and control group: + 0.53 ± 1.49 units and + 0.35 ± 1.27 units respectively, p = 0.25 between groups).

Conclusions: The intervention effect observed at the 6-month follow-up on the composite score was not maintained at the 12-month follow-up, with no effect on FMI being observed at either follow-up. Future studies using mHealth are needed to investigate how changes in obesity related markers in young children can be maintained over longer time periods.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov ( NCT02021786 ; 20 Dec 2013).

Keywords: Intervention; Nutrition; Obesity; Physical activity; Pre-school; Prevention; mHealth.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

MINISTOP was approved by the Research and Ethics Committee, Stockholm, Sweden (2013/1607–31/5; 2013/2250–32). Informed consent was obtained from all parents.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Marild S, Bondestam M, Bergstrom R, Ehnberg S, Hollsing A, Albertsson-Wikland K. Prevalence trends of obesity and overweight among 10-year-old children in western Sweden and relationship with parental body mass index. Acta Paediatr. 2004;93:1588–1595. doi: 10.1111/j.1651-2227.2004.tb00848.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Uppsala-Örebro Region Care Program . Overweight and obesity among children and youth-prevention and treatment. 2015.
    1. Braback L, Gunnel B, Ekholm L. No further increase of obesity among Swedish 4-year old children. Large regional differences indicate the significance of socioeconomic factors. Lakartidningen. 2009;106:2758–2761. - PubMed
    1. Stockholm County Council . Child healthcare yearly report. 2013.
    1. De Craemer M, De Decker E, Verloigne M, De Bourdeaudhuij I, Manios Y, Cardon G. The effect of a cluster randomised control trial on objectively measured sedentary time and parental reports of time spent in sedentary activities in Belgian preschoolers: the ToyBox-study. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2016;13:1. doi: 10.1186/s12966-015-0325-y. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Associated data