| In the UK, MEND has a 20-year research partnership with the most eminent child health organizations in the UK, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust and University College London Institute of Child Health. In Australia, MEND is collaborating with Deakin University on a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of MEND 2–4 in the state of Victoria. The MEND 7–13 Program is the first clinically proven, community-based UK child weight management program to operate at scale. It is supported by successful research, including a feasibility study, pilot study and randomized controlled trial (RCT) — the gold standard for clinical research. MEND also has rollout results quantifying the health and social outcomes of the MEND 7–13 Program at over 350 sites in the UK and Australia. Our RCT evidence, published in the peer-reviewed journal Obesity, in its February 2010 supplement on childhood obesity, showed that the MEND 7–13 Program helps reduce children’s waist circumference (a measure of abdominal fat) and BMI, increase their physical activity levels and self esteem, and reduce their sedentary behaviors including screen time. These results continued to improve over time, after the core Program was completed. Children showed sustained positive health improvements 12 months after starting the MEND 7–13 Program. MEND is now conducting a second, larger RCT at the Institute of Child Health in the UK to follow families for longer periods of time and to see how they are faring 2, 5 and 10 years after starting the Program. Our work in Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and the US has demonstrated that the Program is effective in other countries, cultures and languages. As we expand internationally, we will be extending our research with other respected academic partners. |