Development and Evaluation of Interventional Program for Obesity Based on Health Education and Self-Dertermination / 日本農村医学会雑誌

ABSTRACT

To arrest the prevalence of obesity in Japanese rural communities, we have conducted to develop an interventional program for the prevention of obesity based on health education and self-dertermination since 2000. We adopted the behavioral program to strengthen self-control of diet and exercise based on learning principles. The objectives of the 3-month program were to lose weight by 3.0kg, to reduce metabolic measurement values by 10% in terms of dietary caloric intake and to keep taking over 7, 000 steps a day. Subjects were 140 residents with Body Mass Index of 24.8±3.0, aged 35-70 years, in Izumo City and Sada Town, Shimane Prefecture, who were interested in the prevention of overweight and obesity-associated diseases, voluntarily participated in the behavioral program conducted in 2000-2002. The rate of dropout from the program was 2.9%(4/140). The behavioral intervention induced significant decreases in intakes of energy, protein and fat, and increases in the number of steps per day taken by the participants. The intervention induced a significant difference in weightloss (-1.0kg in 2001 and -1.8kg in 2002). Significant differences of anthropometric parameters were found in body weight, BMI, waist and hip circumferences, blood pressure and lipid profiles, such as total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and HDL-cholesterol, by the intervention in 2001 and 2002. Since our program is based on the participants' awareness and autonomous improvement of behavior, it would be easier to continue for a long term compared to complying with specialist's complicated prescription of behavioristic modification.