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Effects of a Gamified Educational Program in the Nutrition of Children with Obesity

  • Education & Training
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Abstract

Obesity is considered a global epidemic of the twenty-first century by the World Health Organization (WHO). Specifically, the Canary Islands has the highest level of this disease in Europe and 40% of children in Spain are overweight or obese. This increase is a direct result of changes in the lifestyles of the population and its nutrition. Because of this, we have designed an educational program based on motor games, active videogames and virtual learning environments to improve the long-term health of children. This article presents and analyzes the results of a study on the nutritional knowledge and adherence to the Mediterranean diet of 46 obese children aged 6 to 12 years in the Canary Islands who participated in an educational program. The study design was quasi-experimental, with two groups (experimental and control). A long-term longitudinal study (3 years) was carried out. A set of evaluation instruments was used for the different phases. The results show significant improvements between the experimental and control groups in terms of their knowledge of healthy nutrition and their adherence to the Mediterranean diet. As a main conclusion, we emphasize that a gamified educational intervention program supported by ICT helps to motivate and promote improvements in the nutrition of children.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thanks to the children and their families who have participated in this study. Also, we gratefully acknowledge the researchers and collaborators of PROVITAO from different areas: Health (Carmela Quirce González, Norberto Marrero Gordillo, Honorio Armas Ramos, Mariana E. Cairós González, Josue Monzón Diaz, Mercedes Murray), Technology (Yeray del Cristo Barrios Fleitas, Alberto Mora Carreño, Belén Armas Torres, Vanesa Muñoz Cruz, Lorenzo Moreno Ruiz, Jesús Rodríguez Alamo, Miguel A. Padrón, Niobe Jerez, Belén Armas Torres, Pablo V. Torres Carrion) and Education (Luis Navarro Campillo, Elisenda Espino Espino, Silvia Vera González, Isa Neves). Besides, we thank the Canary Islands Government Education Counseling and the schools and teachers who collaborated with the project.

Funding

This study was funded by “Fundación Caja Canarias” (grant number OBE05).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    Nazaret Gómez del Río & Francisco García-Peñalvo

  2. Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain

    Carina S. González-González, Raquel Martín-González, Vicente Navarro-Adelantado & Pedro Toledo-Delgado

Authors
  1. Nazaret Gómez del Río
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  2. Carina S. González-González
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  3. Raquel Martín-González
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  5. Pedro Toledo-Delgado
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  6. Francisco García-Peñalvo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nazaret Gómez del Río.

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Authors declares that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the research committee of “Hospital Universitario de Canarias” and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 6 KIDMED [20]
Full size table

Appendix 2

Health questionnaire [21]

(*) Category Nutrition: [the HIGHER the score, the BETTER the knowledge of eating habits]

-Indicate which of these foods you consider to be more or less healthy.

 

Healthy

Unhealthy

Coffee

Milk or shakes

Refreshments

Packaged juices

Natural juices

Hamburgers or sausages

Sausages such as chorizo, mortadella, sausage ...

Homemade or bagged potato chips

Cakes and sweets

Vegetables

Fruit

Candies (candies ...)

Nuts (seeds, peanuts, nuts ...)

Legumes (chickpeas, lentils ...)

Butter or margarine

Yogurt

Fresh cheese

Yellow cheese

Chicken or turkey

Meat with a lot of fat

Fish

Eggs or omelet

1

1

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

1

1

0

1

1

0

1

1

0

1

0

1

1

0

0

1

1

0

1

1

1

1

0

0

1

0

0

1

0

0

1

0

1

0

0

-What foods should we consume daily, weekly and monthly?

 

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Eggs

Fish

Olive oil

Sweets

Vegetables

Cheese, milk, yogurt

Cereals, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes ...

Poultry

Meat

Fruits

Beans, legumes and nuts

0

0

1

0

1

1

1

0

0

1

1

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

-Overall, do you think your diet is healthy?

· No [0]

· A little [1]

· Enough / Could be improved [2]

· Very [3]

· I do not know [0]

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del Río, N.G., González-González, C.S., Martín-González, R. et al. Effects of a Gamified Educational Program in the Nutrition of Children with Obesity. J Med Syst 43, 198 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-019-1293-6

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