A Youth-Led, Social Marketing Intervention Run by Adolescents to Encourage Healthy Lifestyles among Younger School Peers (EYTO-Kids Project) : A Protocol for Pilot Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial (Spain)

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Impact of a youth-led social marketing intervention run by adolescents to encourage healthy lifestyles among younger school peers (EYTO-Kids project) : a parallel-cluster randomised controlled pilot study

Acknowledgements: This Spanish research project was supported by the Central Market of Reus, Spain (Mercat Central de Reus), which provided fresh food for the intervention. We thank the professors, parents and students of the Reus primary and high schools for their enthusiastic participation in this study. Funding: This research project was funded by Obra Social La Caixa, Convocatòria acció social 2015. Reference: AS15-00350//17.980 euros.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Impact of a youth-led social marketing intervention run by adolescents to encourage healthy lifestyles among younger school peers (EYTO-Kids project): a parallel-cluster randomised controlled pilot study

Background: Encouraging healthy lifestyles in children is a challenge. This project aimed to improve lifestyles of younger peers by engaging adolescent creators (ACs) to design and implement peer-led and social marketing (SM) health-promoting activities. Methods: A 10-month parallel-cluster randomised controlled school-based pilot study was performed in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Reus (Spain) spanning two academic years (2015-2016/2016-2017). Eight primary schools (n=375 children) and four high schools (n=94ACs) were randomly placed in the intervention group. The 94 ACs (12-14 years) designed and implemented four SM activities for their younger peers (9-11 years). Eight primary schools (n=327 children) and three high schools (n=98 adolescents) served as the control group and received no intervention. Primary (physical activity and fruit consumption) and secondary outcomes (screen time, vegetables, soft drinks, sweets and fast food consumptions) were assessed with validated questionnaires at baseline and at the end of the study. Results: After 10 months, fruit consumption and physical activity were maintained in the children who consumed ≥1 fruit/day and spent ≥6 hours/week physical activity. However, compared with the controls, the intervention significantly increased the physical activity of girls to 15.6 min/week, whereas the percentage of girls who consumed sweets, soft drinks and fast food decreased significantly by 8.4%, 14.5% and 5.9%, respectively. Additionally, the percentage of ≥2 hour/weekday of screen time by boys decreased significantly by 8.2%. Conclusion: The European Youth Tackling Obesity-Kids, SM and peer-led intervention, effectively increased physical activity hours/week in girls, but was not effective in improving the percentage of children who consumed the recommended fruit. Moreover, the percentages of girls who consumed sweets, soft drinks and fast food and boys screen time decreased

Adolescents encouraging healthy lifestyles through a peer-led social marketing intervention : Training and key competencies learned by peer leaders

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project benefited from valuable collaborations of experts and institutions: National Children's Bureau (the United Kingdom), Companhia de Ideias (Portugal), Komunikujeme (Czech Republic) and Eurecat and Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain). The authors thank the teachers, parents and students of each four-participating countries for their enthusiastic participation in this study. This study project was funded by the European Commission (European Directorate General HEALTH—December 19, 2012). This funder did not play a role in the Spanish study design, data collection, study management, data analysis, data interpretation, article writing or decision to submit the report for publication. This article in journal has been possible with the support of the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya, the European Union (UE) and the European Social Fund (ESF) (2021 FI_B1 00160).Peer reviewedPublisher PD