Journal of Obesity & Weight Loss Therapy
Open Access

The impact of deprivation and other demographic factors in reducing BMI in children participating in a weight management intervention in the United Kingdom

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Copyright: © 2020  . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Background: BeeZee Bodies specialises in adult and child weight management and behaviour change and has been running in counties across the United Kingdom for almost ten years. The BeeZee Families Programme is an award winning healthy lifestyles programme designed for children who are identified as overweight/obese and their families. The Families programme incorporates behavioural economics, sociological factors and implementing our ‘Habit before the habit’ methodology to elicit real-life change, beyond the obvious factors influencing weight.

Aim: This study aimed to explore the demographic factors which affect the success of families on the BeeZee Families programme. Success is determined by completion of the programme and a decrease in BMI.

Methods: Demographic and anthropometric data were analysed for 992 children aged 5-15 recruited between 2016 and 2019 from across Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. Factors assessed include: gender, age, marital status, disability status, and quintile of deprivation (QOD), BMI, and waist circumference. Demographic variables were compared with change in BMI during the programme. All data has been analysed using SPSS Version 25.

Results: Preliminary results determined that of those who commenced the BeeZee Families programme 78.1% completed, with 76.5% of completers decreasing or maintaining their BMI with a mean decrease in -0.45kg. On average, completers had a lower initial BMI than those who left the programme early (p=0.009). Of those who completed, the change in BMI was larger for males than for females (p=0.019). Priority should be given to ensuring that children with a higher BMI should complete the programme, and that girls who complete are better supported to achieve similar results to males in terms of BMI reduction.

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