A research project seeks to reduce childhood obesity with the help of one hundred families in Aragon

The IIS Aragón has been collaborating since 2019 in the 'Meli-POP' study to prevent childhood obesity. We work with children who were then between 3 and 6 years old and who will be followed up until adolescence.

It is estimated that four out of ten schoolchildren are overweight or obese, figures that worry to such an extent that the Council of Ministers has approved the creation of a committee that will be in charge of promoting and coordinating the development of a plan to improve the health of minors. And it is also the objective pursued by the 'Meli-POP' (Mediterranean Lifestyle in Pediatric Obesity Prevention) study, in which the IIS Aragón Health Research Institute has collaborated since 2019.

There are many experts who describe childhood obesity as “the other pandemic.” Luis Alberto Moreno Aznar, professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Zaragoza and coordinator of the Genud group (Growth, Exercise, Nutrition and Development), recognizes that in the 80s they already carried out studies on this problem, "when frequency was much less than now. But has gone further: "It is observed that since 2010 it has stabilized" but, as he adds, lThe coronavirus crisis “has not helped”.

«Now we are going to try to reduce it in the future, because it would be ideal. "It is one of the most serious public health problems of this century."

Luis Alberto Moreno Aznar, professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Zaragoza and coordinator of the Genud group (Growth, Exercise, Nutrition and Development).

The objective of the research project is "to reduce the frequency of obesity in children who Initially they were between 3 and 6 years old«. A hundred families from Zaragoza, in which at least one of the parents is overweight or obese, participate in this study, which was born, it indicates, to "prevent childhood obesity, through lifestyles that include traditional Mediterranean nutrition and exercise." physical".

«To motivate families, we provide them, free of charge, extra virgin olive oil and fish. Before the pandemic, in addition, two sessions of physical-leisure activity were offered per week. During Covid they were taught 'online' and now children are encouraged to do physical activity at least twice a week. The special intervention is carried out on half of the participants », he explains.

In this project, which involves "accompaniment" for ten years, two other Spanish cities participate: Santiago de Compostela and Córdoba. The idea is that when it ends the children will be between 13 and 16 years old. "Now we are finishing the follow-up of the minors after five years," she says. The first results could be known in December.

Mediterranean diet

From the IIS Aragón, Moreno insists on the importance of the Mediterranean diet to combat childhood obesity. In this sense, as he highlights, There is “a long way to go”, since, at the moment, half of Spanish children do not consume a diet that can be considered Mediterranean.

"Fruit, vegetables, legumes, unrefined cereals, olive oil, of course, some dairy products, preferably fermented, more fish and meat in moderate quantities."

Luis Alberto Moreno Aznar, professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Zaragoza and coordinator of the Genud group (Growth, Exercise, Nutrition and Development).

"If we think about the 60s, which is when the Mediterranean diet was consumed in Spain, they did not eat as much meat as now," he clarifies. For the nutrition specialist, families with lower socioeconomic level They have a greater risk of their children being obese, "because they have a greater consumption of this type of food with a high energy density and fewer opportunities to do some activity."

Source: Heraldo de Aragón

Image: Genud Group – Archive image of the 'Meli-POP' study, in which researchers from IIS Aragón collaborate