Growing up healthy: Obesity prevention tailored to critical transition periods in the early life-course
Description
- Obesity prevention programmes often have had only limited or short-term effects. In particular socially vulnerable groups, who are affected most, have not been reached successfully. If the known modifiable risk factors were effectively changed in a favourable direction and if this was achieved in the early life course and in the most affected population sub-groups, the burden of obesity and its related cardio-metabolic disorders could be reduced immensely. GrowH! was taking advantage of the most recent longitudinal research results on risk factors and novel participatory intervention approaches in youth to develop and test better targeted and more effective primary prevention strategies. To this aim, GrowH! addressed three research questions: (1) What is the – possibly age-dependent – impact of known modifiable risk factors at critical transition periods during the early life-course and which hypothetical interventions would result in the strongest reduction of overweight, obesity and their sequelae later in life? (2) Can two different novel participatory intervention approaches that have shown first promising effects be successfully transferred to socially disadvantaged populations in Spain and Germany and can these then be scaled-up sustainably by operational stakeholders? (3) What are the structural and regulatory requirements and conditions for the implementation and up-scaling of the developed intervention approaches onto a regional, national or international level from a whole systems perspective? The answers to these questions feed into a policy guidance that is worked out and disseminated for wider use and sustainability of the available evidence in a European context together with public health societies and the WHO.
A considerable amount of work has been performed. Researchers have developed methods to identify children and adolescents at high-risk of becoming overweight or obese over a period of 4-6 years, based on a comprehensive set of behavioural, environmental, familial, lifestyle and physiological risk factors. Also considering the development of weight and height in the early life as well as the parental educational level, GrowH! was able to identify sensitive time windows for intervention (https://doi.org/10.3389/ijph.2023.1605798). The various analyses performed on data of the IDEFICS/I.Family and ABCD cohorts provided evidence that fed into hypothetical interventions for childhood obesity prevention targeting also vulnerable groups (https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-023-01501-6). An international multidisciplinary systems advisory board has been established that provided expertise regarding the structural and regulatory requirements for implementation, transfer and up-scaling of the developed local intervention approaches. Both proof-of-feasibility studies in Germany and Spain were completed and the results will be published. A scoping review was conducted and a publication summarizing the existing systems frameworks for childhood obesity prevention is in progress.
The project was funded within the framework of the Joint Programming Initiative "A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life" (JPI HDHL)
Funding period
- Begin: April 2021
End: June 2024
Sponsor
- Federal Ministry of Education and Research
Contact
Link
Selected project-related publications
- Schreuder A, Börnhorst C, Wolters M, Veidebaum T, Tornaritis M, Sina E, Russo P, Moreno LA, Molnár D, Lissner L, De Henauw S, Ahrens W, Vrijkotte T, on behalf of the GrowH! consortium. Population trajectories and age-dependent associations of obesity risk factors with body mass index from childhood to adolescence across European regions: A two-cohort study. Pediatric Obesity. 2024;19(2):e13088.
https://doi.org/10.1111/ijpo.13088 - Börnhorst C, Ahrens W, De Henauw S, Hunsberger M, Molnár D, Moreno LA, Russo P, Schreuder A, Sina E, Tornaritis M, Vandevijvere S, Veidebaum T, Vrijkotte T, Wijnant K, Wolters M, on behalf of the GrowH! consortium. Age-specific quantification of overweight/obesity risk factors from infancy to adolescence and differences by educational level of parents. International Journal of Public Health. 2023;68:1605798.
https://doi.org/10.3389/ijph.2023.1605798 - Börnhorst C, Pigeot I, De Henauw S, Formisano A, Lissner L, Molnár D, Moreno LA, Tornaritis M, Veidebaum T, Vrijkotte T, Didelez V, Wolters M, on behalf of the GrowH! consortium. The effects of hypothetical behavioral interventions on the 13-year incidence of overweight/obesity in children and adolescents. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 2023;20:100.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-023-01501-6 - Börnhorst C, Pigeot I, De Henauw S, Formisano A, Lissner L, Molnár D, Moreno LA, Tornaritis M, Veidebaum T, Vrijkotte T, Didelez V, Wolters M, on behalf of the GrowH! consortium. Hypothetical lifestyle interventions and their effects on overweight/obesity incidence in children and adolescents from vulnerable and non-vulnerable groups. 22nd Annual Meeting of the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA), 14-17 June 2023, Uppsala, Sweden.
- Börnhorst C, Pigeot I, De Henauw S, Formisano A, Lissner L, Molnár D, Moreno LA, Tornaritis M, Veidebaum T, Vrijkotte T, Didelez V, Wolters M, on behalf of the GrowH! consortium. Hypothetical behavioral interventions and their effects on overweight/obesity incidence in children and adolescents. 18. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Epidemiologie (DGEpi), 26.-28. September 2023, Würzburg.
- Börnhorst C, Pigeot I, De Henauw S, Formisano A, Lissner L, Molnár D, Moreno LA, Tornaritis M, Veidebaum T, Vrijkotte T, Wolters M, Didelez V, on behalf of the GrowH! consortium. Estimating the effects of hypothetical behavioral interventions on overweight/obesity incidence using observational data: Methodological challenges and practical considerations. 5th Conference of the Central European Network (CEN), 3-7 September 2023, online presentation.
- Busse H, Brand T, Schepan ML, Rataj E, Haines J, Wolters M, Zeeb H, Ahrens W, on behalf of the GrowH! consortium. Adapting a home-based obesity prevention intervention to promote healthy family routines in deprived neighbourhoods in Germany using qualitative focus groups. 22nd Annual Meeting of the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA), 14-17 June 2023, Uppsala, Sweden.