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NCT Number: NCT06626295

Exercise-snacks for Breaking the Sedentary Lifestyle and Improving the Physical Fitness of Obese Adolescents?

The management of a person with obesity involves long-term behavioral changes with a balanced diet in both quantity and quality, along with the adoption of a more active lifestyle: increasing physical activities and reducing sedentary behaviors. The school setting has been identified as a favorable environment for interventions aimed at reducing and interrupting the time adolescents spend sitting and preventing the associated negative health consequences.

Recently, very short (< 1 minute) and intense exercises, called 'exercise-snacks,' have been reported to be effective in adults for 1) improving physical fitness over 6 weeks, and 2) improving vascular function and lowering blood glucose levels over a single day. Additionally, in adolescents with diabetes, they have been shown to reduce body fat. This raises the question of whether adding 'exercise-snack' sessions to a multidimensional care program for hospitalized obese adolescents could further improve their physical fitness in the short and medium term.

The objective of this project is to compare the effects of a traditional multidimensional care program with the addition of 'exercise-snacks' to the same care program without 'exercise-snacks' on the physical fitness, body composition, vascular function, and physical activity and sedentary behaviors of obese children in the short and medium term. Forty-eight obese adolescents will be included. The 'exercise-snack' group will perform six exercise sessions per day for three weeks in addition to the standard care. The control group will receive only the standard care. Assessments of physical fitness, body composition, vascular health, and questionnaires on physical activity, sedentary behavior, and cognitive restraint will be conducted at the beginning and end of the three-week program, as well as 1 and 3 months after the end of the program.

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Key information

Age range

11 year–18 year

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Institut Saint Pierre, Palavas-les-Flots, France

Loading trial locations.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Body mass index Z-score corresponding to stage 2 obesity,
  • no weight loss of more than 5% of total body weight in the past 3 months,
  • parental consent
  • minor's acceptance

Exclusion criteria

  • Contraindication to physical activity
  • current participation in a clinical trial

Treatment and study plan

exercise-snack group

Other

Adolescents in the exercise-snacks group will perform 4 "exercise-snacks" sessions per day during 3 weeks in addition to multidimensional care program. These sessions will consist of 1-min various intense supervised exercises . They will also receive information about their attitudes to physical activity.

Primary outcomes

  1. Changes in aerobic fitness: predicted VO2max

    Time frame: at inclusion, at the end of the 3-weeks program and 1 and 3 month following the end of the program

    Measured by the Spartacus 15-15 field test, an intermittent maximal running field test with prediction of VO2max:

    For girls: VO2max = last stage * 153.4433 + BMI * 58.64534 + âge * -2.701522-921.2878 For boys: VO2max = last stage * 153.4433 + 320.1583 + BMI * 58.64534 + âge * -2.701522-921.2878

Secondary outcomes

  1. Changes in fat mass

    Time frame: from inclusion to the end of the 3-weeks program and 1 and 3 month following the end of the program

    measured by medical body composition analyzer mBCA SECA, in kg

  2. Changes in body mass index in kg/m²

    Time frame: at inclusion, at the end of the 3-weeks program and 1 and 3 month following the end of the program

  3. change in carotid extra-media thickness

    Time frame: at inclusion, at the end of the 3-weeks program and 1 and 3 month following the end of the program

    measured by echocardiography (Mylab, Esaote, Italie) and off-line analyses by CAROLAB, in mm

  4. Changes in carotid intima-thickness

    Time frame: at inclusion, at the end of the 3-weeks program and 1 and 3 month following the end of the program

    measured by echocardiography (Mylab, Esaote, Italie) and off-line analyses by CAROLAB, in mm

  5. Change from baseline in carotid compliance (mm²/mmHg)

    Time frame: From inclusion to the end of the 3-weeks program and 1 and 3 month following the end of the program

    measured by echocardiography (Mylab, Esaote, Italie) according to the variations of systolic and diastolic arterial diameters and pulse pressure (measured on the left arm by an automated system Omron)

  6. Changes in eating behaviours traits

    Time frame: at inclusion, at the end of the 3-weeks program and 1 and 3 month following the end of the program

    measured by the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire to assess three factors: the cognitive restraint scale (6 items), the emotional eating scale (6 items), and the uncontrolled eating scale (9 items) with a 4-point response scale.

    For the TFEQ scores, means are computed for each subscale and are transformed to correspond to a 0-100 scale score Higher scores indicate higher levels of restrained eating, disinhibited eating, and predisposition to hunger.

  7. Changes in psychometric properties of physical activity and sedentary

    Time frame: from inclusion to the end of the 3-weeks program and 1 and 3 month following the end of the program

    measured by a 31 items self-administered questionnaire CAPAS-Q to assess the psychometric properties of the Children and Adolescents Physical Activity (PA) and Sedentar (SB) by-Questionnaire (Fillon et al 2022) Responses are quoted from 1 to 4 for PA and from 1 to 6 for SB. The sum of items 1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 17 exploring PA duration, the sum of items 2, 4, 7, 11, 13, and 18 exploring PA intensity, within its different contexts of practice: school PA (i.e., the sum of items 1,2,3,4,5), non-school PA (the sum of items 6 to 14), and sports and leisure PA (the sum of items 15 to 18). The last 13 items designe to assess the SB dimension:, exploring screen ( the sum of items 2, 6, and 7) or non-screen non-screen ( the sum of items 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12 and 13) behaviors, the consecutive SB duration (the sum of items 3, 10 and 11) and the context of SB: school SB (the sum of items 1 to 3), non-school SB (the sum of items 4 to 11), SB during transportation (the sum of 12,13)

  8. change in level of habitual physical activity

    Time frame: before inclusion and before the 1 and 3-month visit

    measured by accelerometric data using AX3, Axivity over 7-days consecutive period before inclusion and before the 1 and 3-month visit

Study contacts

Contact information is provided by the study sponsor or research team.

VINET Agnès VINET Agnès

CONTACT

[email protected]

33 4 13 95 13 44

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Avignon

Other

Collaborators

  • Institut Saint Pierre

Registry information

Official study title

Exercise-snacks: an Effective Solution for Breaking the Sedentary Lifestyle and Improving the Physical Fitness of Obese Adolescents?

Acronym: SNACKEX

Important dates

Study start
2024
Primary completion
2026
Study completion
2026
First posted
Oct 3, 2024
Registry last updated
May 5, 2026

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

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This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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