Background
Several Danish municipalities are challenged by a high incidence of overweight among pre-school children. Overweight during childhood can have major consequences throughout childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood with an increased risk of a wide range of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. However, the most intrusive for children with overweight are usually their quality of life and psychosocial challenges that they experience to a greater extent compared to children with normal weight. It is therefore important to start early with an intervention that promotes a healthy start in life, and thus ensure a healthy weight development for the children. At present, there are no concrete guidelines for how early primary prevention aimed at healthy weight development is best done. There is only limited evidence on how such interventions work, and this evidence is so far exclusively based on experiences from international studies. There is therefore a need for evidence to be generated in a Danish context.
Aim and target group
The aim of The Bloom Study is to develop and evaluate an intervention to promote healthy weight development in infants and small children. The target group is first-time parents and their children, and the intervention has a particular focus on also reaching families with low socio-economic position and ethnic minority background. The project focuses on the family as a whole and follows the family from pregnancy until the child is approx. 3 years old. The project is anchored in the unique Danish system of community health nurses. The project has initially received funding for the development of the intervention.
The Bloom intervention
The intervention is developed using the Intervention Mapping protocol, which is a recognized planning tool for systematic development of theory- and evidence-based health promotion interventions. The intervention is thus based on the strongest available scientific literature, health behavior theories and our own qualitative studies.
The main elements of the project will be to intensify the intervention in the community health nurses' existing work to guide parents in relation to factors of importance for healthy weight development among infants and toddlers, including the early establishment of healthy habits for food, meals, movement, screen use, sleep, and sense of security. In addition, the effort will include extra home visits, phone calls from the community health nurse and a video library for parents.
Project organization
The project is anchored at The National Institute of Public Health, SDU. The project group consists of postdoc Camilla Thørring Bonnesen, senior researcher Trine Pagh Pedersen, PhD student Lene Kierkegaard, research assistant Rikke Rothkegel Carlsson, and Head of the Research Group for Child and Adolescent Health Katrine Rich Madsen.
Collaborators
The project is being developed in close collaboration with five municipalities (Aarhus, Billund, Brønderslev, Randers and Slagelse), Centre for Prevention in Practice, Local Government Denmark, Copenhagen University College.
Funding
TrygFonden has funded the first part of the project where the need for an intervention was investigated (the Healthy Childhood Study), and the Novo Nordisk Foundation has funded the development of The Bloom intervention.
Project period
The development period began in January 2021 and ends in December 2023.