Background: The speeding increase and the high prevalence of childhood obesity is a serious problem for Public\nHealth. Community Based Interventions has been developed to combat against the childhood obesity epidemic.\nHowever little is known on the efficacy of these programs. Therefore, there is an urgent need to determine the\neffect of community based intervention on changes in lifestyle and surrogate measures of adiposity.\nMethods/design: Parallel intervention study including two thousand 2249 children aged 8 to 10 years ( 4th and 5th\ngrade of elementary school) from 4 Spanish towns. The THAO-Child Health Program, a community based intervention,\nwere implemented in 2 towns. Body weight, height, and waist circumferences were measured. Children recorded their\ndietary intake on a computer-based 24h recall. All children also completed validated computer based questionnaires to\nestimate physical activity, diet quality, eating behaviors, and quality of life and sleep. Additionally, parental diet quality\nand physical activity were assessed by validated questionnaires.\nDiscussion: This study will provide insight in the efficacy of the THAO-Child Health Program to promote a healthy\nlifestyle. Additionally it will evaluate if lifestyle changes are accompanied by favorable weight management.
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