Introduction: This randomised school-based controlled study aimed to evaluate the baseline results of nutrition knowledge, attitude, and practice (NKAP), health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and parents’ report of parenting skills (PRPS) among overweight and obese children.
Methods: This study was performed on three intervention groups and one control group. It was conducted among Year Five students from primary schools who had overweight or obese status and were generally healthy without any chronic diseases. The children completed NKAP and child self-report of Pediatric Quality of Life (PedsQoL) questionnaires, while parents completed parent proxy report of PedsQoL and PRPS questionnaires. Descriptive statistics and parametric test in SPSS were utilised.
Results: Out of 139 participants involved in the baseline study, 18.7% and 81.3% were overweight and obese respectively. This study revealed a significantly higher knowledge score among boys (p = 0.016) and among those who lived in urban areas (p = 0.019). The children’s selfreport PedsQoL recorded highest score for Social Functioning domain and lowest score for Emotional Functioning domain. A contradictory finding was obtained from the parent proxy report, where the Physical Functioning domain scored the lowest and the Emotional Functioning domain had the highest score. Notably, some of the findings from PRPS questionnaires completed by their parents were unfavourable.
Conclusions: This study provided prospective evidence of the current status of NKAP, HRQoL among overweight and obese children as well as findings from PRPS among their parents.