Sustainable prevention of obesity through integrated strategies: The SPOTLIGHT project's conceptual framework and design

Today BMC Public Health published the paper describing the SPOTLIGHT project, a European Commission FP7-funded project on sustainable prevention of obesity through integrated strategies.SPOTLIGHT comprises a series of systematic reviews on: individual-level predictors of success in behaviour change obesity interventions; social and physical environmental determinants of obesity; and on the reach, efficacy, adoption, implementation and maintenance (RE-AIM) of multi-level interventions to help to prevent obesity. An interactive web-atlas of currently running multi-level interventions will be developed, and enhancing and impeding factors for implementation will be described. At the neighbourhood level, these elements will inform the development of methods to assess obesogenicity of diverse environments, using remote imaging techniques linked to geographic information systems. The validity of these methods will be evaluated using data from surveys of health and lifestyles of adults residing in the neighbourhoods surveyed. At both the micro- and macro-levels (national and international) the different physical, economical, political and socio-cultural elements will be assessed.

Netherlands Nutrition Centre YouTube video shows the obesogenic eating environment from a child's perspective

In a video recently put on YouTube, produced by the Netherlands Nutrition Center, nicely shows the obesogenic eating environments a child is exposed to throughout the day. The video illustrates what foods a child is exposed to, how easily available and accessible high fat and sugar foods are throughout the day, and how other people encourage and enable children to eat almost anytime and anywhere. For a systematic review of studies on  environmental correlates of environmental correlates of obesity-related dietary behaviors in youth, click here.

Children's fruit and vegetable intakes: appropriate school lunches may make parents' jobs easier

Most children across Europe and beyond eat fewer fruits and vegetables than recommended by health authorities. Promoting fruit and vegetable consumption among schoolchildren is part of health promotion policy in most countries. In a paper published this week in e-pub ahead of print in the journal Public Health Nutrition, we present a collaborative study between Folkhälsan Research Center in Helsinki and the EMGO Institute for Health & Care Research at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. In this study we explored the importance of parenting practices regarding schoolchildren's fruit and vegetable intakes and the importance of school lunches. More precisely, we compared four countries, i.e. Finland, Sweden, and Germany and the Netherlands. The first two countries do provide free school lunches and these lunches are required to fit dietary recommendations, including fruit and vegetables. In the other two countries no school lunches are generally provided. Our study indicated that in countries where no school lunches were provided, parenting practices are of greater importance for children's fruit and vegetable intake; or in other words: if school lunches that include fruits and vegetables are provided, parents may have a bit of an easier job where their children's fruit and vegetables are concerned. The study was conducted as part of the European Commission funded ProGreens project.

Free news paper METRO highlights our research on genetic influences on sedentary activities

In a study from which our paper was recently published in the scientific journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medcine, we investigated the degree to which genetic and environmental influences affect individual differences in sedentary behavior, i.e. screen-viewing activities such as TV watching and computer-time, throughout adolescence. We used data from  5074 adolescent twins (aged 13-19 years) and 937 siblings (aged 12-20 years) from 2777 families from the Netherlands Twin Registry.

The results showed that the genetic architecture of screen-viewing sedentary behavior differed by age. Variation in sedentary behavior among 12-year-olds was accounted for by genetic (boys: 35%; girls: 19%), shared environmental (boys: 29%; girls: 48%), and nonshared environmental (boys: 36%; girls: 34%) factors. Variation in sedentary behavior among 20-year-olds was accounted for by genetic (boys: 48%; girls: 34%) and nonshared environmental (boys: 52%; girls: 66%) factors. Yesterday the free national newspaper METRO highlighted and covered our study on the front page.

A review on effectiveness of health promotion strategies by the American Heart Association

In an American Heart Association scientific statement published in August, a writing group systematically reviewed the scientific evidence for population approaches to improve dietary habits, increase physical activity, and reduce smoking. Their statement was published in the journal Circulation. Strategies were categorized and reviewed in six domains, i.e. media and educational campaigns; labeling and consumer information; taxation, subsidies, and other economic incentives; school and workplace approaches; local environmental changes; and direct restrictions and mandates. Thus, strategies mainly focussing on the individual as well as on the physical, social and economical environments were included in the review. The writing group also reviewed the potential contributions of healthcare systems and surveillance systems to behavior change efforts. The group showed in their review that there is rather convincing evidence for some intervention approaches, such as subsidy programs for healthier foods, school fruit programs, comprehensive, multicomponent healthy diet and physical activity promotion at schools and workplaces, and restrictions on food advertisement. Labelling of foods was also rated as evidence-based, but not so much as a means to induce healthier choices among consumers, but rather as an incentive for the food industry to make healthier products.

Obesity and exposure to artificial light

Artificial light nowadays allows and enables us to work and be active 24 hours per day. However, such lifestyles and exposure to artificial light may disrupt our natural light-dark rythm and wake-sleep as well as meal rythms and other aspects of irregular lifestyle, and this may lead to higher risk for overweight and obesity.  At least a paper from Dr. Wyse from the University of Aberdeen  in BioEssays argues that metabolic disfunction and obesity may result from "desynchronization of circadian and environmental rhythms".
Please click here for a lay person friendly summary of the research provided by Cordis news.

Are people in more affluent countries in Europe more likely to be physically active during leisure time?

Socioeconomic inequalities in physical activity at the individual level are well reported; in the more affluent countries, people who are relatively less well off are less likely to engage in leisure time physical activities. Whether inequalities in economic development and other macro-environmental variables between countries are also related to physical activity at the country-level is less well documenten.

In a study that was recently published in e-pub -with Dr. Adrian Cameron from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, as first author- in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, we examined the relationship between country-level data on macro-economic environmental factors (Gross Domestic Product (GPD) per capita, public sector expenditure on health, percent living in urban areas and cars per 1000 population) with country-level physical activity prevalence obtained from previous pan-European studies. Studies that assessed leisure-time physical activity (n=3 studies including 27 countries in adults, n=2 studies including 28 countries in children) and total physical activity (n=3 studies in adults including 16 countries) were analysed separately.

We found strong and consistent positive correlations between leisure-time physical activity and country GDP per capita in adults. No such associations were found for children, nor for total physical activity.
Differences in national leisure-time physical activity levels in adults throughout Europe may this be a consequence of economic development. relative lack of economic development of some countries in Europe may make increasing leisure-time physical activity there more difficult, while these countries may be most in need of physical activity promotion.