Objective: Health beliefs of overweight adults who did and did not enter an exercise program were compared to identify possible factors that hamper people to increase physical exercise. Method: Participants (n = 116, 78 women and 38 men) were overweight adults without comorbidities. Self-report instruments examined the burden of suffering, beliefs related to physical exercise and obesity, somatic complaints, and obesity-related quality of life of new participants of exercise programs versus sedentary non-exercisers. Results: Mean BMI of exercisers was and of non-exercisers was 34.6 (7.0) and 32.8 (5.8) respectively. The exercisers were more often female, had fathers with less overweight, and considered overweight a more serious health problem. Fear of injury was higher and perceived health benefits were lower in the non-exercisers, who also more often attributed their overweight to physical causes and believed overweight to be irreversible. Body weight, age, education level, somatic complaints, and quality of life of the groups were comparable. Conclusion: With respect to health beliefs, overweight non-exercisers reported more fear of injury and perceived their overweight as more irreversible than exercisers. Considering these factors in intervention and public health promotion may help overweight sedentary people to start physical exercise.
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The percentage of overweight children in The Netherlands is rising. In 2020, 18.5% of children between 2-25 years old were overweight (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2022). From the perspective of the healthcare professionals, long periods between consultations could be used more efficiently and effectively to help these children develop healthier eating patterns and physical activity habits and reach a healthier weight.
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Objective: This study evaluated the effect of an after-school group-based medium-intensity multicomponent behavioural intervention programme for children aged 8–12 years classified as overweight, obese or at risk for overweight on body mass index standard deviation score (BMI SDS). In accordance with standardized protocols body weight and height were measured in 195 participants (88 boys, 107 girls) at baseline and at the end of the programme. A total of 166 children derived from a school-based monitoring system served as control group. Multivariate regression analyses examined the effect of the intervention and the independent factors associated with better outcomes in the intervention group. Results: Analysis of covariance showed a significant intervention effect on BMO SDS in favour of the intervention group (b-coefficient - 0.13 ± 0.03; p < 0.01) compared with the control group. Change in BMI SDS between baseline and follow-up in the intervention group was associated with baseline age (b-coefficient 0.03 ± 0.02; p=0.04) but was independent from gender, ethnicity, baseline BMI SDS, time between baseline and follow-up, school year and attendance rate.
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Over a million people in the Netherlands have type 2 diabetes (T2D), which is strongly related to overweight, and many more people are at-risk. A carbohydrate-rich diet and insufficient physical activity play a crucial role in these developments. It is essential to prevent T2D, because this condition is associated with a reduced quality of life, high healthcare costs and premature death due to cardiovascular diseases. The hormone insulin plays a major role in this. This hormone lowers the blood glucose concentration through uptake in body cells. If an excess of glucose is constantly offered, initially the body maintains blood glucose concentration within normal range by releasing higher concentrations of insulin into the blood, a condition that is described as “prediabetes”. In a process of several years, this compensating mechanism will eventually fail: the blood glucose concentration increases resulting in T2D. In the current healthcare practice, T2D is actually diagnosed by recognizing only elevated blood glucose concentrations, being insufficient for identification of people who have prediabetes and are at-risk to develop T2D. Although the increased insulin concentrations at normal glucose concentrations offer an opportunity for early identification/screening of people with prediabetes, there is a lack of effective and reliable methods/devices to adequately measure insulin concentrations. An integrated approach has been chosen for identification of people at-risk by using a prediabetes screening method based on insulin detection. Users and other stakeholders will be involved in the development and implementation process from the start of the project. A portable and easy-to-use demonstrator will be realised, based on rapid lateral flow tests (LFTs), which is able to measure insulin in clinically relevant samples (serum/blood) quickly and reliably. Furthermore, in collaboration with healthcare professionals, we will investigate how this screening method can be implemented in practice to contribute to a healthier lifestyle and prevent T2D.
