Preventing childhood obesity: the sentinel site for obesity prevention in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

SUMMARYIn spite of greater awareness of the need for action to reduce obesity, the evidence on sustainable community approaches to prevent childhood and adolescent obesity is surprisingly sparse. This paper describes the design and methodological components of the Sentinel Site for Obesity Prevention, a demonstration site in the BarwonSouth West region of Victoria, Australia, that aims to build the programs, skills and evidence necessary to attenuate and eventually reverse the obesity epidemic in children and adolescents.The Sentinel Site for Obesity Prevention is based on a partnership between the region's university (Deakin University) and its health, education and local government agencies. The three basic foundations of the Sentinel Site are: multi-strategy, multi-setting interventions; building community capacity; and undertaking program evaluations and population monitoring. Three intervention projects have been supported that cover different age groups ( preschool: 2 -5 years, primary school: 5-12 years, secondary school: 13-17 years), but that have many characteristics in common including: community participation and ownership of the project; an intervention duration of at least 3 years; and full evaluations with impact (behaviours) and outcome measures (anthropometry) compared with regionally representative comparison populations.We recommend the Sentinel Site approach to others for successfully building evidence for childhood obesity prevention and stimulating action on reducing the epidemic.

Educational strategies for the prevention of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity

“…58 The site includes intervention, training, evaluation, and monitoring actions in order to strengthen the capacities of communities regarding the promotion of a healthy diet, physical activity, and maintaining the appropriate weight in children. An internet-based diet program DASH has been used to verify behavioral changes associated with eating habits, in order to examine the effects on weight and blood pressure.…”

Decreasing trends in overweight and obesity among an Australian population of preschool children

“…[37][38][39][40][41][42] Four major statewide initiatives aiming to impact on nutrition, physical activity and/or obesity prevention in communities and settings relevant to early childhood in Victoria have been in operation during the last decade. 37,38,41 The programmes include one with a focus on food service in child care centres, 38 one multicomponent programme, 37 which included nutrition, physical activity and breastfeeding promotion strategies, to complement ongoing efforts to promote breastfeeding initiation and duration across the state 43 and one programme focused on oral health promotion which included comprehensive strategies to promote healthier snacks and water consumption.…”

Multilevel analysis of the Be Active Eat Well intervention: environmental and behavioural influences on reductions in child obesity risk

“…Further details of sampling and recruitment procedures for this study have been reported previously. 22,23 Measures Anthropometric measures. Child height and weight were measured by trained researchers using standard methods.…”

“…19,23 The school questionnaire comprised 46 items. The variables selected to use in the modelling to represent the school level were the presence of written school policies for healthy eating (yes/no), and physical activity (yes/no).…”