Eric Stice on Obesity Prevention Programs for Children & Adolescents
Fast Moving Front Commentary, July 2010
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Article: A meta-analytic review of obesity prevention programs for children and adolescents: The skinny on interventions that work
Article: A meta-analytic review of obesity prevention
programs for children and adolescents: The skinny on
interventions that work. |
Eric Stice talks with ScienceWatch.com and answers a few questions about this month's Fast Moving Fronts paper in the field of Psychiatry/Psychology.
I initially became interested in studying obesity when I learned that approximately 111,000 people die from obesity-related medical problems in the US each year. In addition, the fact that obesity treatment interventions do not result in lasting weight loss prompted my interest in developing prevention programs for this significant public health problem.
Because of my research in this topic, I have also talked to many people who struggle with weight control, which has further fueled my interest in advancing knowledge regarding risk factors for obesity and in the design of more effective obesity prevention programs. Given my early training in substance abuse research, I have been particularly interested in the parallels between addiction to drugs and food.
"At present, we know little regarding how to identify and train interventionists to deliver empirically supported obesity prevention programs on a large-scale basis."
There are several research and intervention programs that could benefit from additional financial support. I think there is a pressing need for prospective brain imaging studies that determine whether abnormal responses of brain reward circuitry to food actually predate unhealthy weight gain and or are a consequence of unhealthy weight gain. We also need to more fully characterize these abnormalities using novel procedures such as Positron Emission Tomography to map abnormal responses to receptor density and neurotransmitter levels.
Amazing advances have been made in the addictions field that should be tested with regard to food addiction. These studies should include a strong focus on genetic risk factors that make people more vulnerable to obesity and addiction to food. Again, much of what we have learned in the addictions literature seems germane to obesity, but has not yet been fully studied.
Equally important, it would be beneficial if there were greater financial support for evaluation of obesity prevention programs that are based on the notion that high-fat and high-sugar foods are addicting and create brain changes that increase risk for escalations in caloric intake and unhealthy weight gain.
For instance, it would be very informative to evaluate an intervention that encourages parents to either reduce the amount of high-fat and high-sugar foods they feed their children or feed them as usual, to see if those in the former condition show less unhealthy weight gain and a more normal response to food intake in brain imaging studies. To my knowledge, no one has ever used fMRI in a trail evaluating an obesity prevention program.
More generally, it would also be important to disseminate obesity
prevention programs on a large-scale basis to see if we can achieve a true
reduction in the prevalence or incidence of obesity. At present, we know
little regarding how to identify and train interventionists to deliver
empirically supported obesity prevention programs on a large-scale
basis.
Eric Stice, Ph.D.
Oregon Research Institute
Eugene, OR, USA
KEYWORDS: OBESITY, PREVENTION, META-ANALYSIS, MODERATORS, SCHOOL-BASED INTERVENTION, DISEASE RISK FACTORS, BODY-MASS INDEX, FAMILY-BASED TREATMENT, CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE, CHILDHOOD OBESITY, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, CONTROLLED TRIAL, FOLLOW-UP, RANDOMIZED-TRIAL.