Researchers Publish Findings of A $4m SPOTLIGHT On Obesity

The SPOTLIGHT project undertook surveys of people’s views on what constituted their local environment and investigated tools such as Google StreetView to assess the quality of neighborhoods.

 

The researchers found that urban planners have a responsibility to ensure that the neighborhoods they design will promote healthy behavior, and better still if the environment can encourage social networking and community support.

 

SPOTLIGHT project coordinator Dr Jeroen Lakerveld of the VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam told NutritionInsight: “We are constantly looking for what matters for whom in terms of environments and obesity-related behaviors such as snacking. Our results may provide an extra push for policy makers to shift their priorities, and for instance invest in enhancing social capital in specific neighborhoods – rather than allowing any more fast-food restaurants to open their doors.”
 
The researchers also discovered that local interventions to prevent obesity and encourage healthy behavior need to be adapted to local needs, and that planning of interventions should involve the people being targeted.

 

This may require ‘two-phase’ funding, with an initial fund for participatory design and piloting of a project, and a second phase to implement it if the initial phase shows promise.
 
“Health promotion in communities is important, and can be successful,” said Dr Lakerveld. “But short-term funding for community projects may lead to frustration and poor project morale. The agencies that supply funding need to realize that sustained support is needed to get sustained results. Promoting strong communities and re-designing the built environment can contribute significantly to sustainable changes in health behavior.”
 
The SPOTLIGHT project is part-funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program. Partners in the research consortium include: VU University Medical Center (The Netherlands); The University of Lisbon (Portugal); The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (United Kingdom); The European Association for the Study of Obesity; The University of Bergen (Norway); The University of Oxford (United Kingdom); Ghent University (Belgium); Metropolitan University College Copenhagen (Denmark); Maastricht University (The Netherlands); Université Paris 13 (France); University of Debrecen (Hungary); Blox Group (The Netherlands), and The World Obesity Federation (formally known as the International Association for the Study of Obesity, IASO and International Obesity TaskForce, IOTF).