Young, Fit and Happy. A Web-based Intervention to Prevent Obesity in Adolescents.
Young, Fit and Happy. A Web-based Intervention to Prevent Obesity in Adolescents.
The prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing throughout the world. Obesity is seen
 as one of the most important public health threats because of the significant impact of
 chronic conditions associated with obesity. Obesity during adolescence is a strong precursor
 of obesity and related morbidity in adulthood.

 Interventions aimed directly at reducing weight or preventing increase in weight shows
 limited results on long term effects and it is shown that increase in activity has more
 impact on health outcome than on weight-loss. Further, weight-loss does not seem to be an
 appropriate measure of therapeutic interventions for growing children. The hypothesis of this
 study is that focusing on increasing meaningful physical activity through individual tailored
 counselling will have positive effects on the adolescents' fitness (health) and quality of
 life. Thus, the overall purpose of the study is to examine the extent to which a web-based
 intervention influences physical activity, fitness and quality of life in over-weight and
 obese adolescents Further, the aim is to explore and describe how adolescents experience
 being over-weight and obese, what they perceive as meaningful physical activity and finally
 how adolescents experience lifestyle changes as demanded in the intervention study.
The target group is overweight adolescents, meaning their BMI is over or equal to the 95th
 percentile (BMI>25) and they should not have severe health problems as a result of their
 overweight. For adults, BMI (Body Mass Index; weight in kilograms divided by the square of
 height in meters) values at or above 25 indicate overweight and a BMI at or above 30 defines
 obesity. No such generally accepted definitions exist for children and adolescents. However,
 international standardized cut points have been proposed, among others by Cole et al (2000)
 and experts support the use of BMI cutoff points for children. The cut points proposed by
 Cole et al (2000) are widely used and take age, gender and sex into consideration in the
 estimation. The focus is primarily to prevent a negative development, and the aim is that the
 school health service in the future might implement a modified version of this strategy for
 working with overweight adolescents.

 The design of the study is a complex intervention study with a multi-method design,
 consisting of a quasi-experimental trial and a qualitative study. The sample will be drawn
 from schools in Oslo. Overweight adolescents will be selected and placed in the intervention
 group or control group respectively. The sampling will be based on objective measures of
 weight and height and using Cole's index to define overweight and obesity. Weight and height
 will be measured by the school nurse and will be coordinated with her regular meetings with
 the adolescents in 8th grade.. The study group will receive the web-based intervention and
 the control group will receive standard care. At baseline, 3 months and 1 year both the
 experimental group and the control group will be measured at relevant variables. In the
 qualitative part of the study, in depth interviews with the adolescents in the intervention
 group will be performed and they will write daily unstructured blogs on the web. The sampling
 procedure for the qualitative part of the study will follow the sampling procedure of the
 intervention study. From the intervention group, a strategic or purposive sample of
 adolescents will be asked to participate in the qualitative part (Gerrish and Lacey 2006). A
 sample of maximum variation according to gender and sosio-demographic variables is intended.
 Sampling continues until saturation is reached and the adolescents will be interviewed in
 depth before the intervention starts, further at 3 and 12 months after the intervention is
 ended.
Inclusion Criteria:

 -  overweight/obese adolescents in 8th grade

 -  BMI is over or equal to the 95th percentile (BMI>25 according to Cole's index)(height
 and weight measured by the school nurse)

 -  school population

 Exclusion criteria

 -  not have severe health problems as a result of their overweight

 -  not be in another treatment program