Letter: Psycho-Physiological Responses to a 4-Month High-Intensity Interval Training-Centered Multidisciplinary Weight-Loss Intervention in Adolescents with Obesity (J Obes Metab Syndr 2020;29:292-302)

Abstract

J Obes Metab Syndr 2021;30:188-189 Pediatric obesity is a major public health burden.1 Nutritional management2 and exercise3 promotion are a main axis of behavioral intervention for pediatric obesity. One of the major obstacles in pediatric obesity is to motivate children and adolescents to adhere to treatment.4 Therefore, psychology underlying pediatric obesity is an important research area, although not many researches have investigated this issue directly and intensively. The paper “Psycho-physiological responses to a 4-month highintensity interval training-centered multidisciplinary weight-loss intervention in adolescents with obesity”3 investigated the impact of 16-week high-intensity interval training on psychological responses and their association with changes in intervention outcomes (body weight, body composition, and aerobic capacity) with 56 adolescents (28 girls and 28 boys; aged from 11 to 17 years; mean body mass index (BMI) z-score, 2.34; BMI percentile, 98.58). Health-related quality of life (HR-QOL), health perception (HP), and physical self-perception (PSP) were used for assessments. Among anthropometric results, there were significant improvements in body weight (92.6 ± 18.9 to 85.9 ± 16.2 kg), BMI (35.0 ± 4.8 to 32.1± 4.5 kg/m2), z-BMI (2.3± 0.3 to 2.1± 0.3), and fat mass percentage (36.0% ± 9.1% to 30.4% ± 7.8%). Among psychological results, there were significant improvements in physical functioning, physical limitation, general health, bodily pain, physical condition, adiposity, alimentation, general health, perceived general health, self-perceived coordination, endurance, activity, global self-concept, and appearance. The authors reported that the multidisciplinary weight loss intervention improved HR-QOL, HP, and PSP. In addition, physical HR-QOL but not mental HR-QOL domains of HP and PSP were associated with weight reduction. The results are interesting. However, in my opinion, some additional information will increase reader understanding. Psychological support (1/month) was included in this multidisciplinary weight loss intervention. Since this study reported remarkable improvement on psychological responses, more details on the detailed components of psychological support intervention would help readers to design an intervention program equipped with appropriate psychological components. The actu-