Thursday, January 17, 2008

EMGO seminar on obesity, physical activity and tailored health education




On Wednesday, January 16 we held a seminar at the EMGO Institute (http://www.emgo.nl/) featuring three distinguished scientists in the field of behavioural nutrition and physical activity research. First, Deanna Hoelscher presented data from the School Physical Activity and Nutrition (SPAN) study. This study to monitor trends and determinants of childhood overweight and obesity in Texas, shows that the rising trends in obesity prevalence that were observed in the last decades appear to have topped off or even reversed in some parts of the state of Texas. Dr. Hoelscher, who is the director of the Michael and Susan Dell Centre for Advancement of Healthy Living (http://www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/DellHealthyLiving/) and Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Houston, argued that a comprehensive approach of health education and policy change may have initiated this promising development.
Dr. Ron Iannotti from the prevention research branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (http://www.nichd.nih.gov/) presented research from the Health Behaviour in School Children study, showing that physical activity and sedentary behaviour are associated with a range of physical and mental health indicators as well as with other health behaviours among school children. His results further indicate that physical activity and sedentary behaviour are not two sides of the same coin. His research compared the US to different regions in Europe and his results indicate that patterns between physical activity, sedentary behaviour and health may differ between regions.
Finally, Dr. Kim Gans, Associate Professor at Brown University (http://www.brown.edu/) department of Community Health, presented some interesting results from two studies on tailored nutrition education. Both studies indicated that tailored nutrition education is more effective than generic nutrition education. However, her studies also indicate that multiple tailored feedback is not always more effective than single tailored feedback and that enrichment of tailored feedback with interactive motivational elements may not be superior to tailored feedback only.
The EMGO Institute was honoured to be able to host these three scientists and grateful for their contribution to the EMGO seminar program.

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