Hygiena 2019, 64(3):117-127 | DOI: 10.21101/hygiena.a1727

Strategies and action plans for childhood obesity prevention

Jindřich Fiala, Pavlína Kaňová, Lucie Kotalová

Masarykova univerzita, Lékařská fakulta, Ústav ochrany a podpory zdraví, Brno, Česká republika

Child overweight and obesity represent a major problem, in terms of health consequences, especially later in adulthood, in terms of high prevalence, and the difficulty of the solution. Obesity is usually carried on adulthood, and prevention is therefore the best way to intervene. But it requires a very comprehensive solution, a really society-wide approach, with the involvement of politics, many resorts, and individual families. The aim of the article is to review current strategies and action plans or implementation plans, namely the European Action Plan on Childhood Obesity 2014-2020, the National Action Plan on Obesity in the Health 2020 Program, and the WHO implementation plan Ending Childhood Obesity. The basic areas and priorities of the individual plans and the specific objectives to be achieved in the areas are described. Further, selected results of the mid-term evaluation reports of the European plan and Health 2020 are presented. The differences between the different plans as well as the intrusiveness of the measures and the intervention ladder are discussed. The Action Plans cover virtually all action areas that are currently relevant to stop the rise of childhood obesity. Most of the measures are based on policy-making and implementation of initiatives. The aim is to create an antiobesogenic environment, whether by offering healthy options or by restricting unhealthy ones. But in the practical implementation of prevention, there is enough scope for individual projects that should be targeted primarily at pre-school children and their entire families.

Keywords: child overweight, child obesity, obesity prevention, action plan, intervention

Received: May 2019; Accepted: July 18, 2019; Published: August 20, 2019  Show citation