Obesogenic environments: a systematic review

Our 'physical' environment- i.e. the availability and accessibility of opportunities to be physically active and eat healthy foods- may be of influence on our odds to become overweight or not. E.g. in an environment that offers many opportunities for physical activity, and in which the health food choice is the default food choice the risk of gaining unnecessary weight may be slimmer than in a car friendly and fast food environment. Understanding which aspects of this physical environment may be of influence on adult obesity is thus important for public health and urban planning. We have conducted an updated review of the scientific literature on associations of physical environmental factors with adult weight status, in which we have explicitly taken the methodological quality of the reviewed studies into account. This study was just published online in BMC Public Health. Joreintje Mackenbach was first authors on this paper, and the study was part of the European Commission-funded SPOTLIGHT project. Based on the available scientific literature, urban sprawl and land use mix are consistently associated with weight status. However this available evidence is based on North American studies only.

Measured sedentary time and physical activity during the school day

In a study just published online in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, with Dr. Maartje van Stralen as first author, we investigated the time devoted to sedentary and physical activities during school hours in five European countries and to examine differences according to country, sex, ethnicity, parental education and weight status. The study was part of the ENERGY project. More than 1000 10-12 y old primary schoolchildren in Belgium, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Switzerland wore accelerometers for at least six consecutive days. Only weekdays were used for this study to calculate the percentages of school-time spent in sedentary activities and moderate to vigorous intensity activity.
European schoolchildren spent on average 65% of their time at school in sedentary activities and 5% on moderate to vigorous intensity activities, with small differences between countries. Girls spent somewhat more school-time in sedentary activities than boys, and spent less time in moderate to vigorous intensity activities. Overweight children spent significantly less time in moderate to vigorous intensity activities than normal weight children. Parental education or ethnicity were not associated with time spent in sedentary or physical activities. European schoolchildren thus spend a small amount of their school-time in moderate to vigorous intensity activities and a large amount in sedentary activities, with small but significant differences across countries.

Differences between youth in Turkey and from Turkish origin in the Netherlands in body weight, diet and physical activity

In the Netherlands, a fair number of people are from Turkish origin. In a paper just published in e-pub in the journal Public Health Nutrition, in a collaboration between Turkish and Dutch researchers, we compared measures of body weight and fat distribution as well as dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviors between Turkish adolescents in Turkey (TR-TR) and adolescents from Turkish immigrant ethnicity in the Netherlands (TR-NL). We compared data on TR_NL from six Dutch school-based studies with data from a cross-sectional survey conducted in Turkey. This enabled us to compare data from 915 TR-TR adolescents to  data from 433 TR-NL adolescents. We looked at self-reported sugar-containing beverage (soft drinks, fruit juices et cetera) consumption, fruit and vegetable intake, screen (TV and PC) time, physical activity, measured body height and weight, BMI, waist and hip circumferences, and skinfold thicknesses.
Our results showed that more TR-NL adolescents were overweight (31 % v. 26 %) and obese (9 % v. 6 %) and had significantly higher mean BMI, waist circumference and skinfold thickness  than TR-TR adolescents. TR-NL had higher sugared drinks intakes (1173 v. 115 ml/d), ate less fruits and vegetables (295 v. 647 g/d), less screen time (253 v. 467 min/d) and higher physical activity levels (61 v. 27 min/d) than TR-TR adolescents.
Adolescents from Turkish ethnicity in the Netherlands were thus more often overweight and had a less favorable dietary pattern than their peers in Turkey, while their physical activity and screen time patterns were more favorable. These results suggest that adolescents from Turkish immigrant ethnicity in the Netherlands have adopted lifestyles more similar to the Dutch.

Neighborhood social capital and sports participation in youth

In a study just published online in pre-pub in the journal Social Science and Medicine, with Dr. Rick Prins as first author, we explored the role of neighborhood social capital as a relevant factor for sports participation in youth. We studied if such social capital interacted with individual level determinants of participation in sports, such as attitudes towards doing sports, perceived behavioral control and intentions. The study used data from the YouRAction trial investigating the effects of computer-tailored feedback and advice to promote physical activity among adolescents. Self-administered questionnaires were used to learn the adolescents' frequency of sports participation, perceived neighbourhood social capital, cognitions (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and intention toward sport participation) and demographics. Ecometric methods were used to aggregate perceived neighbourhood social capital to the neighborhood level. We found that adolescents who experienced positive social capital in their neighborhood were more than 5 times as likely to comply with the so-called 'fit norm', i.e. participating in sports for at least three times per week. Moreover, neighborhood social capital moderated the association of attitude, perceived behavioural control and intention with fit norm compliance: the associations of these cognitions with fit norm compliance were stronger in case of more neighborhood social capital, suggesting that the 'effect' of these attitudes and intentions was stronger in case of more social capital.

Exploring nationwide dissemination of a Dutch school-based obesity prevention program

The evidence-based Dutch Obesity Intervention in Teenagers (DOiT) program is a school-based
obesity prevention program for 12 to 14-year olds attending the first two years of prevocational education. In a paper just published in the journal BMC Public Health, with Femke van Nassau as first author we describe a study  to evaluate (a) the nationwide dissemination process of DOiT in theNetherlands, and (b) the relationship between quality of implementation and effectiveness during nationwide
dissemination of the program in the Netherlands.

DEDIPAC has officially started

To address the major societal challenges and enhance cooperation in research across Europe, the European Commission has initiated and facilitated ‘joint programming’. The Determinants of Diet and Physical Activity (DEDIPAC) Knowledge Hub (KH) is the first action of the European Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) ‘A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life’. The objective of DEDIPAC is to contribute to improving the understanding of determinants dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviours. DEDIPAC KH is a multi-disciplinary consortium of scientists from 46 research centers supported by joint programming grants from 12 countries across Europe. In the initial three years DEDIPAC KH will develop, exchange, harmonize and share expertise, methods, measures, data and other infrastructure to enable a broad multidisciplinary approach, including biological, ecological, psychological, sociological, and economic determinants and their interrelationships.
Today we had the kick off of DEDIPAC at the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research of the VU University Medical Center, where the DEDIPAC core team met to prepare for the work to be conducted in the coming weeks, months and years.

Family factors, breakfast habits and children's weight status across Europe

In a paper just published in the journal PLOS ONE we report on an investigation of associations of family-related factors with children’s breakfast consumption and body mass index (BMI-z-score). We also examined if children’s breakfast consumption mediates associations between family-related factors and children’s BMI. Our paper was part of our reports on the cross European ENERGY study, and Dr. Wendy van Lippevelde of Ghent University was first author on this paper.
Data from more than 6000 10-12 year olds and from one of their parents from 12 countries were used for this study.

We found that family breakfast was inversely associated with children's BMI: children where family breakfast was more common, had lower body weights for their heights. A broad range of family and parenting variables were associated with breakfast habits, such as parental encouragement, paying attention, permissiveness, and parental self-efficacy to address children’s nagging. The results support  that parenting factors should be addressed to promote healthy breakfast habits, which
may contribute to better energy balance in school-age children.