Abstract
BACKGROUND:
The encouragement of healthy lifestyles for obesity prevention in young people is a public health priority. The European Youth Tackling Obesity (EYTO) project is a multicentric intervention project with participation from the United Kingdom, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Spain. The general aim of the EYTO project is to improve lifestyles, including nutritional habits and physical activity practice, and to prevent obesity in socioeconomically disadvantaged and vulnerable adolescents. The EYTO project works through a peer-led social marketing intervention that is designed and implemented by the adolescents of each participating country. Each country involved in the project acts independently. This paper describes the "Som la Pera" intervention Spanish study that is part of the EYTO project.
METHODS/DESIGN:
In Spain, the research team performed a cluster randomised controlled intervention over 2 academic years (2013-2015) in which 2 high-schools were designated as the control group and 2 high-schools were designated as the intervention group, with a minimum of 121 schoolchildren per group. From the intervention group, 5 adolescents with leadership characteristics, called "Adolescent Challenge Creators" (ACCs), were recruited. These 5 ACCs received an initial 4 h training session about social marketing principles and healthy lifestyle theory, followed by 24 sessions (1.30 h/session) divided in two academic years to design and implement activities presented as challenges to encourage healthy lifestyles among their peers, the approximately 180-200 high-school students in the intervention group. During the design of the intervention, it was essential that the ACCs used the 8 social marketing criteria (customer orientation, behaviour, theory, insight, exchange, competition, segmentation and methods mix). The expected primary outcomes from the Spanish intervention will be as follows: increases in the consumption of fruits and vegetables and physical activity practice along with reductions in TV/computer/game console use. The secondary outcomes will be as follows: increased breakfast consumption, engagement with local recreation and reduced obesity prevalence. The outcomes will be measured by the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study (HBSC) survey at baseline and at the end of the intervention. In the control group, no intervention was implemented, but the outcome measurements were collected in parallel with the intervention group.
DISCUSSION:
This study described a new methodology to improve lifestyles and to address adolescent obesity.
TRIAL REGISTRATION:
ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02157402. Registered 03 June 2014.
The encouragement of healthy lifestyles for obesity prevention in young people is a public health priority. The European Youth Tackling Obesity (EYTO) project is a multicentric intervention project with participation from the United Kingdom, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Spain. The general aim of the EYTO project is to improve lifestyles, including nutritional habits and physical activity practice, and to prevent obesity in socioeconomically disadvantaged and vulnerable adolescents. The EYTO project works through a peer-led social marketing intervention that is designed and implemented by the adolescents of each participating country. Each country involved in the project acts independently. This paper describes the "Som la Pera" intervention Spanish study that is part of the EYTO project.
METHODS/DESIGN:
In Spain, the research team performed a cluster randomised controlled intervention over 2 academic years (2013-2015) in which 2 high-schools were designated as the control group and 2 high-schools were designated as the intervention group, with a minimum of 121 schoolchildren per group. From the intervention group, 5 adolescents with leadership characteristics, called "Adolescent Challenge Creators" (ACCs), were recruited. These 5 ACCs received an initial 4 h training session about social marketing principles and healthy lifestyle theory, followed by 24 sessions (1.30 h/session) divided in two academic years to design and implement activities presented as challenges to encourage healthy lifestyles among their peers, the approximately 180-200 high-school students in the intervention group. During the design of the intervention, it was essential that the ACCs used the 8 social marketing criteria (customer orientation, behaviour, theory, insight, exchange, competition, segmentation and methods mix). The expected primary outcomes from the Spanish intervention will be as follows: increases in the consumption of fruits and vegetables and physical activity practice along with reductions in TV/computer/game console use. The secondary outcomes will be as follows: increased breakfast consumption, engagement with local recreation and reduced obesity prevalence. The outcomes will be measured by the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study (HBSC) survey at baseline and at the end of the intervention. In the control group, no intervention was implemented, but the outcome measurements were collected in parallel with the intervention group.
DISCUSSION:
This study described a new methodology to improve lifestyles and to address adolescent obesity.
TRIAL REGISTRATION:
ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02157402. Registered 03 June 2014.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-12 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | BMC Public Health |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 3 Jul 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Acknowledgements This research project has been funded by European Direction General HEALTH-2012 12 19. This funder did not play a role in the Spanish study design, data collection, study management, data analysis, interpretation of data, writing of the report, or the decision to submit the report for publication. This research project has been developed as an EYTO component, and the National Children’s Bureau of the United Kingdom is responsible for the general data analysis of the four EYTO project participating countries; however, the Spanish data will be analysed by our research team. We appreciate the enthusiastic support of our European partners: Komunikujeme (Czech Republic), Companhia de Ideias (Portugal) and the National Children’s Bureau (United Kingdom). The Spanish research project has been supported by Central Market of Reus, Spain (Mercat Central de Reus), which provides fresh food for the intervention, and the Municipality of Reus, Spain [Ajuntament de Reus, Spain]. We thank the professors, parents and young people of the high-schools of Reus for their enthusiastic participation in this study.
Access to Document
- A youth-led social marketing intervention to encourage healthy lifestyles
© 2015 Llauradó et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.