An application of health belief model, group process and social support to promote weight control among overweight children in primary schools, Maung Chachoengsao municipality
Abstract:
An increase in the number of overweight children is a major public health problem of Thailand Health promotion program may assist the overweight children to have appropriate health belief an dbehavior. The purpose of this quasi-experimental research was to describe a health promotion program to promote weight control among overweight children in primary school, Maung Chachoengsao municipality. The research developed the health promotion program based on the Health Belief Model, group process and social support. The samples were 40 overweight grade 6th students from two schools. Of these participants, 20 students from Saint Anthony school were assigned to be an experimental group while students from Saint Louis school were assigned to be a control group. The experiental group participanted in a twelve-week health promotion program from June 2004 till August 2004. Pretest and posttest was Administered. Questionnaires and a datd sheet were to obtain data. Frequency, percentage distribution and analysis of Covariance were applied for analyzing the data. The results of the study showed that health belief, social support, eating behavior and exercise behavior of the experiment group were significantly better than those of the control group. Body weight and Triceps skinfold of the experiment group were significantly lower than those of the control group. It is suggested that this program should be applied to other groups of overweight students