Children
Child rights action with informed and engaged societies
Children

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

Time to read
1 minute
Print
a- a+
Published 13 years ago
Last updated 4 years ago
Read so far

Obesity prevention in preschool and schoolchildren attending public schools from a district of Santiago, Chile: pilot project 2006

0 comments

Kain, J., F. Concha, et al. (2009). "Obesity prevention in preschool and schoolchildren attending public schools from a district of Santiago, Chile: pilot project 2006. / Prevención de obesidad en preescolares y escolares de escuelas Municipales de una Comuna de Santiago de Chile: proyecto piloto 2006." Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutrición 59(2): 139-146.

Background: Childhood obesity in Chile has been recognized as a public health problem. In 2006, we developed a school-based obesity prevention pilot project to intervene during 5 months preschool and school children from 1st to 4th grades attending 7 public schools located in a district of Santiago, Chile of medium-low and low SES.

Objective: The objective of this project was to evaluate the feasibility of implementing a longer intervention giving recommendations to the educational authorities to better implement it.

Methods: We trained teachers to apply educational activities (in nutrition and physical activity) for the children in the 7 schools, but additionally in 4 of these schools, teachers of those grades participated in a Counselling program on healthy lifestyle applied individually, anthropometric evaluation and blood tests. The initiatives were evaluated on a sample of 522 schoolchildren (nutritional status and physical fitness), 38 teachers with Counselling (BMI, waist circumference or WC, blood sugar, HDL, triglycerides, cholesterol) and 19 teachers with no Counselling (BMI and WC). Additionally, we evaluated the quality of PE classes.

Results: The results on the children show a trend on only the younger ones to decrease the % obesity, improving significantly their physical fitness. In teachers with Counselling, a trend toward decreasing BMI and WC was observed, while biochemical parameters remained unchanged. We showed that it is feasible to implement a longer intervention recommending improving the quality of PE classes and allowing more time to train teachers and for individual Counselling.