Four Weeks Aerobic Exercise Combined Dietary Intervention Improved Inhibitory Function On Obese Adolescents

Background: obesity in children and adolescents is a crucial health concern due to its epidemic proportions globally.Obesity-related negative outcomes are not merely physical but also mental,both exercise and diet have independently been recognized as effective approaches for treating weight loss.Interestingly,exercise and diet separately affect cognitive function.Notably,the combination of exercise and diet may provide a larger effect than each single intervention alone.Obesity is likely to continue from childhood and adolescence to adulthood,exploring the beneficial effect of the combined intervention extends to the young obese population is an emergency.Objective: Firstly,examine the differences between obese and normal weight adolescents in cognitive inhibitory and behavior inhibitory,and further to explore the association between body mass index(BMI)and the cognitive function.Secondly,determine the effect of a combined exercise and dietary program on cognitive function as well as the relationship between the program-induced weight change and cognitive function alterations.Methods: 1)A cross-sectional design was explored to examine the cognitive inhibitory and behavior inhibitory in obese(n=37)and normal weight adolescents(n=26),2)A quasi-experimental design was explored to examine fifty-eight adolescents with obese status(body mass index,BMI > 28 kg/m2)were assigned to either an experiment(n = 30)or control group(n = 28).Participants in the experiment group received a scheduled program with a specific exercise protocol(two sessions per day,six days per week)and diet plan for four consecutive weeks;the control group was instructed to maintain their normal school activities.The primary outcome measures were anthropometric data and flanker task performance.Results: 1)The response time of the obesity group was significantly slower than the normal weight group in both congruent and incongruent stimulus conditions,and Go condition(p < 0.01);2)Significant positive relationships between BMI and response time were also revealed in the congruent(r = 0.45),incongruent conditions(r = 0.51)and Go condition(r = 0.50)(p < 0.01).2)The combined program led to reduced BMI with maintenance of the incongruent accuracy in the experiment group,but the incongruent accuracy decreased in the control group after the four-week period.Additionally,the change in weight status between post-and pre-test measurements was inversely correlated with the change in incongruent accuracy.Conclusion: 1)Obese adolescents performed worse than normal-weight adolescents in the basic cognitive function and high-order cognitive functions,reflect that the negative influence of obesity on the cognitive function is in general.In addition,the level of obesity would negatively correlate with cognitive inhibitory and behavior inhibitory.2)The combined exercise and dietary program resulted in decreased weight and enhanced executive function in the obese adolescents,and the weight alteration may be considered the mediator between the intervention and executive function.