Worldwide nearly 400 million children and adolescents were overweight in 2022, and adolescent obesity has quadrupled since 1990. Given the well-known impact of adolescent obesity on health and wellbeing – both immediate and into adulthood – improving dietary habits in this age group is a matter of urgency and a major public health priority. Early adolescence is an ideal time to promote healthy eating, given that dietary and other health-related habits established during this time tend to persist into adulthood. In this issue, Anne Ahrendt Bjerregaard and colleagues examine whether a chatbot-based health education program (versus no program) could improve dietary behaviors and body weight trajectories among nearly 8000 adolescents in Denmark. The 12-week SMS-based intervention focused on key dietary behaviors, aiming to decrease the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, and increase the intake of fruits, vegetables and fish. The authors found no discernible effect on body mass index or dietary habits at 6 months or 18 months after the intervention, leading them to call for more refined and personalized messaging systems to improve the potential utility of such programs.
Image Credit: WHO / Violaine Martin Variety of vegetables at the open market
Research Articles
Hearing loss in Australian First Nations children at 6-monthly assessments from age 12 to 36 months: Secondary outcomes from randomised controlled trials of novel pneumococcal conjugate vaccine schedules
PLOS Medicine: published June 3, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004375
A sex- and gender-based analysis of alcohol treatment intervention research involving youth: A methodological systematic review
PLOS Medicine: published June 3, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004413
Effect of a multicomponent quality improvement strategy on sustained achievement of diabetes care goals and macrovascular and microvascular complications in South Asia at 6.5 years follow-up: Post hoc analyses of the CARRS randomized clinical trial
PLOS Medicine: published June 3, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004335
Metabolic profiles of children aged 2–5 years born after frozen and fresh embryo transfer: A Chinese cohort study
PLOS Medicine: published June 6, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004388
Immunogenicity, reactogenicity, and IgE-mediated immune responses of a mixed whole-cell and acellular pertussis vaccine schedule in Australian infants: A randomised, double-blind, noninferiority trial
PLOS Medicine: published June 10, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004414
An SMS chatbot digital educational program to increase healthy eating behaviors in adolescence: A multifactorial randomized controlled trial among 7,890 participants in the Danish National Birth Cohort
PLOS Medicine: published June 14, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004383
Correction
Correction: Health and economic benefits of achieving hepatitis C virus elimination in Pakistan: A modelling study and economic analysis
PLOS Medicine: published June 25, 2024 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004423