A symposium on behavior change at the European College of Sport Sciences annual meeting

The last couple of days the European College of SportS Science met in Bruges for its annual meeting. Most of the program is indeed dedicated to science on sport and exercise, but there is also interest in physical activity and health. Related to the latter, Prof. Stuart Biddle of Loughborough University organised a symposium at the meeting on behavior change regarding physical activity and sedentary behaviors. I provided a talk on the determinants of physical activity behavior first. Then Prof Ilse de Bourdeaudhuij presented her research on the Ghent 10,000 steps program - an intervention to promote daily physical activities, promoting accumulation of the equivalent of at least 10,000 steps per day, and then Prof. Biddle presented his work on the Sedentary Time ANd Diabetes (STAND) project. The 10,000 steps Ghent studies are very impressive. Prof de Boudeaudhuij and her colleagues have studied the effects, the reach, implementation and adoption and have explored the cost effectiveness of this intervention, all with quite impressive outcomes. The program has been widely adopted and is a positive example of evidence-based promotion of physical activity.

Fatigue mediates the relationship between physical fitness and quality of life in cancer survivors.

In a study just published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sports, with Dr. Laurien Buffart as first author, we aimed to investigate whether fatigue mediates the association between physical fitness and quality of life in cancer survivors, i.e. to explore if cancer patients who are physically more fit have higher quality of life because of reduced fatigue .
We used data from an intervention study. The intervention was an 18-week exercise program for cancer patients consisting of high-intensity resistance and interval training. We assessed physical fitness - peak oxygen uptake and peak power output - self-reported fatigue and quality of life. 
We found significant associations between changes in physical fitness and global quality of life, between physical fitness and fatigue, and between fatigue and global quality of life. General fatigue strongly mediated the positive association between physical fitness and quality of life; our analyses further indicated that physical aspects of fatigue were stronger mediators than mental aspects.

Immigrant families suffer high risk of child obesity

Children in families with non-native ethnicity are more likely to become overweight and obese, according to the results of a survey in seven European countries published in a scientific paper today in the journal Pediatric Obesity. This study was part of the ENERGY project on which I have reported here before.  While obesity levels are quite high to ver high among children across Europe, we found the levels are generally higher among children who have a non-native mother tongue, or whose parents who were born in another country.
We have found several possible causes of the difference between native and non-native families.The consumption of soft drinks tends to be higher in children from non-native families, and regular meals such as breakfast may get skipped more often. The children also watch more television and participate in less sporting activity. However, they do walk or cycle to school more often.
Cultural and lifestyle differences need to be set in the context of family resources, including skills and education but also financial resources and access to support and health information, we believe. Lower educational status is a risk factor for obesity in all communities, and is a contributory factor for these families.We should also recognise that the differences between native and non-native families is smaller than the differences between families in southern and northern Europe as we showed in an earlier publication. National factors matter more than immigration status.
Please click the following links for some press coverage in the Netherlands and Belgium of our study. http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2672/Wetenschap-Gezondheid/article/detail/3275023/2012/06/22/Immigrantenkind-kampt-vaker-met-overgewicht.dhtml http://www.rsscockpit.com/article.do?action=show&id=2162618889 http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4492/Nederland/article/detail/3275023/2012/06/22/Immigrantenkind-kampt-vaker-met-overgewicht.dhtml?utm_source=RSSReader&utm_medium=RSS http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1012/Nederland/article/detail/3275071/2012/06/22/Kwart-allochtone-kinderen-is-te-dik.dhtml?utm_source=RSSReader&utm_medium=RSS http://drimble.nl/binnenlands-nieuws/9699342/immigrantenkind-kampt-vaker-met-overgewicht.html http://www.nu.nl/gezondheid/2841495/kinderen-van-immigranten-vaker-dik.html http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=DMF20120620_129 http://www.nieuwsbank.nl/inp/2012/06/22/T137.htm http://www.skynet.be/nieuws-sport/nieuws/belgie/artikel/889171/kinderen-uit-immigrantengezinnen-hebben-vaker-overgewicht?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign

Individual factors appear to be more important than environmental factors in predicting fruit consumption in adults

In a study just published in Public Health Nutrition, we explored individual determinants of fruit intakes, such as attitudes, intentions and habit strength, and neighbourhood environment (such as availability of fruit points of purchase in the neighbourhood) and home environment (such as home availability of fruit and modeling by family members) determinants of fruit intakes. We more precisely explored if individual factors mediated the possible influence of environments, i.e. that neighbourhood and home environments have an impact on fruit intake via attitudes and intentions as predicted by recent socio-ecological models for predicting health behaviors. We used the GLOBE study (led by Dr. Frank van Lenthe) data for our analyses. Our study showed that individual factors were more strongly related to fruit intake in this population of adults than neighbourhood or home environment factors; modeling by family members, i.e. family member providing a good example by eating ample amounts of fruit themselves, was a significant home environment factor. The influence of family members appeared to be mediated by habit strength and perceived behavior control. This means that adults with fruit eating family members had stronger habits and experienced more control regarding fruit intake.

A joint programming initiative for research to endorse a healthy diet for a healthy life

Today an international meeting was held in The Hague to communicate and discuss the strategic research agenda for a European joint programming initiative (JPI) 'A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life'. This JPI aims to realize joint programming of research across different countries in Europe to provide a road map for harmonized research efforts in the field of food, nutrition, health and physical activity. The strategic research agenda for this JPI comprises three main research areas:

1. Determinants of diet and physical activity
2. Diet and food production
3. Diet-related chronic disease

The next steps will be that the European Member states not only endorse this joint programming in theory, but also in practice by dedicating research funding to realize research into the prioritized areas. 

At the meeting in The Hague I had the honor to get the opportunity to address and reflect upon the first research area that aims at gaining better insights into the interplay between motivation, abilities and environmental opportunities in determining diet and physical activity behavior change.

The ISBNPA 2012 conference is underway

These days -from last Wednesday until tomorrow - the 11th annual meeting of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) is going on in Austin, Texas. With almost 600 delegates, hundreds of oral and poster presentations it is a well attended and interesting meeting. Cutting edge research is presented on the epidemiology, determinants and interventions regarding healthful nutrition and physical activity. I was just present at a very interesting symposium on studies that explored mediators of behavioral nutrition and physical activity and interventions, organized by our PhD student Mine Yildrim and with contributions by researchers from Belgium and Portugal -Prof. Pedro Teixeira presented his impressive results on mediation pathways in Self-determination theory -based interventions.
Prof. Tom Baranowski, one of the founders of the society, discussed the results presented.
Tomorrow we will hold a special symposium on the ENERGY study at the conference, presenting the design, and some of the first results of the project, published as well as not yet published.

Self-Reported Physical Activity and Quality of Life among Cancer Survivors

Physical activity (PA) is suggested to be an important non-pharmacologic means to improve health-related outcomes among cancer survivors. In a paper just published in the journal Plos ONE, with Dr. Laurien Buffart as first author, we aimed to describe PA levels and its association with health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in colorectal cancer (CRC) survivors.
CRC survivors identified from the Eindhoven Cancer Registry treated between 1998 and 2007 were included in the study. These CRC survivors completed questionnaires to assess their PA, HRQoL and a range of other factors and issues such as their experienced distress and fatigue.
We found that moderate to vigorous PA among CRC survivors was associated with higher physical quality of life, and that this association was mediated by distress and fatigue. These results suggest that more PA may lead to lower levels of distress and fatigue and that lower distress and fatigue improves  quality of life, but more rigorous research is needed to further confirm these findings.