Community-based interventions for childhood obesity | Health ...

In a presentation at the International Congress on Obesity in Stockholm, Professor Boyd Swinburn, president of the Population Health and Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Australia, reported the results of an evaluation of successful demonstration projects of the three communities, based around the Australian city of Geelong. Each addresses a different group of age for about three years and includes a comparison population that received no intervention. Focus on children under five years old, another was involved in school-age children and adolescents third party. The interventions included a series of strategies to increase healthy eating and physical activity and improve the community?s ability to continue with them once the project was completed.Community-based interventions to prevent children seem to work best under five years, while there is evidence of some success in primary school children, but with very mixed effects adolescents, according to a leading industry experts.

Comprehensive community interventions are in their infancy, Swinburn said. The first generation of demonstration projects including short-term intervention with limited application in schools. Most of them showed modest or no effects. However, more recent studies, over the past five years have become more sophisticated, which extends beyond the schools across the community to include parents, local authorities, sports clubs and other settings. This is the second generation of studies were undertaken in a variety of locations around the world, but most have focused on primary school children, with a few pre-school children and adolescents

?What needs to happen in the third generation of community-based intervention studies is a marriage of these two approaches. This is not to play the same style of demonstration projects in several communities, but a different way of implementation of evidence-based interventions with a systemic approach, ?said Swinburn. His research on the three projects was funded by Australian government agencies and research councils in Australia.

A key challenge for the implementation of the Community, Swinburn said, was that the effort was led by professionals, rather than a popular movement demanding change.

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama?s campaign to tackle childhood obesity has given a major boost to the profile of Community Swinburn said. However, he added that he and other experts are watching the effort with cautious optimism

?It ?great that he collected and brought to this level of authority, as if something has a high political office, is more likely that things happen. Quick Despite the appeal of these visible events, may not be indicative of real change, ?he said.? The very nature of what we are is that it is treating this type of early-win adventure. This long-term structural gains, such as the implementation of policies around the school food regulations on food marketing to children and so on and will run against the commercial pressure and other considerations policies. It takes time for these procedures less visible political, operational and are not very sexy. ?

Characteristics of success and failure have emerged from different studies, Swinburn said. ?What the president has said and done about what the rules seem to be much more important than programs and activities that teachers are operating,? he said. Instead If the leaders are not on board and there are no policies or resources to support the efforts, it is extremely difficult to obtain significant changes. ?

The project is aimed at primary school children also had a significant impact, Swinburn said. The intervention was not sufficient to reduce the prevalence of overweight and obesity, but it did slow the rate of unhealthy weight gain ? after three years, the children took about 1 kg less than it otherwise. Small changes applied throughout the entire population may have a significant impact on disease outcomes, ?he said.

?Living with epilepsy is difficult enough, but suddenly dies, as occurs in young adults with the disease, is one of the greatest fears of a family is facing,? said Dr. Alica Goldman, assistant professor the Department of Neurology at the BCM. Noebels is a professor in the Department of Neurology, Neuroscience and Molecular and Human Genetics at BCM.

Swinburn in the study, the best results were seen in the program that targets children under five years. 12 000 were targeted children in different contexts, such as nurseries, kindergartens, homes and services for maternal and child health.

After three years, the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children in the intervention group was about 3 %age points lower than the comparison group.

Source: http://www.exercise24.org/?p=401

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