Childhood obesity rates keep rising, but a text based intervention can help.

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While childhood obesity is a widespread problem, the children who are most at risk to develop this disabling condition are already those with fewer educational opportunities and lower income. Now an intervention using text messages helps to close this gap by preventing the development of obesity in very early childhood. Eliana Perrin, a Johns Hopkins pediatrics expert, explains.

Perrin: Our intervention actually closed health disparities gaps. If implemented at scale could have a really huge influence on health equity. This is something that could be easily scaled widely and cheaply, it's not something that will be nearly as hard to do the next time as it was this time. Therefore it could be adopted nationwide and really prevent obesity which promotes better cardiovascular health for child's whole lifetime.   :30

Children in this study maintained healthy growth rates for 2 years, putting them on a much healthier path. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.