ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Rapidly rising rates of childhood obesity (CO) are a current problem, and European and national data confirm the concern. CO comorbidities occur early and tend to persist into adulthood, negatively affecting long-term health. There is an urgent need to implement CO prevention programs, starting in the early years of life. In Southern Italy, an innovative health project, “EpPOI: Educate to Prevent Childhood Obesity,” has been established at the Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria “G. Martino” in Messina, aimed at a multidisciplinary approach to raise awareness among children and their caregivers about the importance of CO prevention through nutrition and physical education from the earliest years of life.

Methods: Two different interventions were conducted by specialists including pediatricians, nutritionists, kinesiologists, and psychologists, one with children from the selected schools (nursery and kindergarten), and a training meeting for parents and school staff. After the interventions, participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire answering 7 questions using a Likert scale where 0 indicates “uninteresting” or “unimportant” and 5 indicates “very interesting” and “very important.” We also asked the level of education and age.

Results: In the 0-2 age group, adherence to the project was very high, with 100% of the staff surveyed considering CO a current problem and supporting the usefulness of the training meetings with specialists; within the family, interest remains high (75%), despite the fact that 25% of the parents surveyed attach little importance to the problem of CO. Adherence to the project in the 3-6 age group is not satisfactory, due to the low attendance of most parents at the meetings. However, parents were surveyed and only less than half of the respondents (47.9%) consider CO a problem. In addition, 22.9% said they would be uninterested in attending a new meeting with specialists, despite the fact that 72.3% of parents consider CO prevention through lifestyle to be very useful. Finally, percentages above 40% (47.9% and 43.8%) would like to implement knowledge on nutrition and physical activity in paediatric age. Fortunately, data from school personnel reveal a higher degree of interest (92.3%) and awareness of CO (72.4%).

Conclusion: This preliminary analysis highlights the need to pursue primary CO prevention programmes, such as the EpPOI project, not only through actions aimed at children's lifestyle changes, but also at parents' perception, promoting healthy lifestyles at school and implementing the current lack of usability and traceability of information concerning CO.