Breakfast skipping, watching TV while eating breakfast, and underweight, overweight and obesity in school children across Europe

In a paper just published in e-pub in the journal Public Health Nutrition we describe a study looking at the relationships between skipping breakfast, watching TV while having breakfast, and weight status in 10-12 y old schoolchildren in eight countries across Europe. This paper is another product from the cross-European ENERGY study.

We found that, as compared to children who eat breakfast every day without watching TV (and  adjusting for sex, ethnicity and parental level of education) children who skip breakfast at least once a week were 1.2 times more likely to be overweight and 1.8 times more likely to be obese; children who watch TV while having breakfast were half as likely to be underweight and 1.4 times more likely to be obese than kids who do not watch TV while having breakfast. Our results are thus in line with earlier studies that also indicated that breakfast skippers are significantly more likely to be overweight and obese. Our study further indicates that watching TV while having breakfast is associated  with higher risk for obesity, but also with lower risk for underweight in schoolchildren.

Effects of exercise in patients treated with stem cell transplantation for a hematologic malignancy

In a paper just published on-line in the journal Cancer Treatment Reviews, we reported a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies looking into  the effectiveness of exercise interventions in patients with hematologic malignancies treated with stem cell transplantation. We included randomized controlled trials comparing exercise with usual care, in which at least 75% of the patients had a hematologic malignancy. based on th eights studies that we were able to review, the results showed that xercise had a statistically significant  effect on cardiorespiratory fitness,  muscle strength, lower fatigue, quality of life, and physical, emotional and cognitive functioning. In conclusion, exercise seems to have beneficial effects in patients treated with stem cell transplantation. The review was led by Saskia Persoon, one of the PhD students contributing to the Alpe D'Huzes Cancer Rehabilitation Program (A-CaRe).

What do 200 kCal look like on your plate?

'FROOT', "your daily dosis of web vitamins" published a very nice series of pictures of 200 kCal of different foods on a same-size plate.

Parental support is important for children's participation in sport activities across Europe

Sport participation makes an important contribution to children's overall physical activity. Understanding influences on sports participation is important and the family environment is considered key, however few studies have explored the mechanisms by which the family environment, parents in particular, influences children's sport participation. The purpose of our study just published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, was to explore associations between factors in the family environment with schoolchildren's sports participation. Additionally we studied if the children's attitudes, perceived behavioural control, health belief and enjoyment related to sports mediated these associations. Dr. Anna Timperio was first author of this paper, which is yet another product of the cross European Energy project.
More than 7000 children aged 10--12 and one of their parents (6000)  from 175 schools in seven European countries participated. Availability of sport equipment in the home (OR=1.16), financial, logistic and emotional support of the parents for the children to engage in sports, and parental modeling  were all positively associated with the children's participation for more than 30mins/wk is sport activities. Attitude, beliefs, perceived behavioural control and enjoyment partly mediated these associations. These results suggest that parental support both directly and indirectly -i.e. by helping to improve the children's attitudes, feelings of control and enjoyment - promotes sport participation in the children.

How important is the weather for children's physical activity?

Biking, walking and playing outside is more fun when the sun is out, and it is not too cold? We just published a study, with Mine Yildirim as first author, looking at just that. We used data from our cross-European ENERGY study among 10-12 year olds. We looked at associations between objective data on physical activity and sedentary time -obtained with accelerometers-, with additional data on rainfall and temperature on the exact days in the countries the kids wore their accelerometers. Our results indeed showed that kids moved more with higher temperatures and moved more and sat less with less rainfall.

VUmc research directors visit Brussels

The past two days, a delegation of the research institutes of the Human Health and Life Sciences theme of the VU university and the VU university medical center visit Brussels. We are here to better learn about Horizon2020, i.e. the new research and innovation programmof the European Commission that will be launched in 2014, to get to know the institutions, people and processes who/that are of influence in defining the research agenda and programs, and to present what we have to offer to this agenda. Our research institutes focus on oncology, neurology, cardiovascular disease and public health, and are thus closely linked to the European health research agenda.

Childhood obesity conference

Today the Dutch childhood obesity conference was held. This one day conference aims to inform professional in the field of prevention, treatment and care regarding childhood obesity about evidence based practice and new developments and insights in the field. I was invited to deliver a keynote lecture on prevention of overweight and obesity. In my talk I argued (again) that for effective prevention of childhood overweight and obesity a health protection approach -aiming to create and establish a more 'obesopreventive' instead of the present day 'obesogenic'  environment- is needed on top of a health promotion approach leaning heavily on health education and personal responsibility. Overweight and obesity are societal problems and society -at all levels from authorities, the private sector to families and individuals need to take joint responsibility.