Confronting Obesity: Co-creating policy with youth

Project Information

CO-CREATE

Grant agreement ID: 774210

DOI

10.3030/774210

Project closed

EC signature date 27 April 2018

Start date 1 May 2018

End date 31 October 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 9 757 943,75

EU contribution

€ 9 678 653,75

Coordinated by

FOLKEHELSEINSTITUTTET
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - CO-CREATE (Confronting Obesity: Co-creating policy with youth)

Reporting period: 2022-05-01 to 2023-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Overweight and obesity is affecting children in the EU and worldwide at epidemic levels, affecting nearly 40 % of children in some countries. Overweight or obesity is a major risk factor for individual health and wellbeing, increasing the risk for a range of health-related problems ranging from type 2 diabetes, hypertension and coronary disease to mental health and quality of life. Overweight and obesity in adolescent years is highly predictive of obesity in adult life. Thus, successful efforts to prevent childhood overweight and obesity has a large potential to improve health over the lifespan.

The CO-CREATE project - Confronting Obesity: Co-Creating policy with youth - set out to tackle childhood obesity and adolescent obesity and its comorbidities by working with young people to develop tools and practices to strengthen their role in policy development.

CO-CREATE successfully showed that young people can meaningfully enter into extended collaboration and come up with policy proposals which are specific to their own experiences, and may challenge professionals’ assumptions. They support structural policies based on making changes to systems and find this is preferable to policies that rely on individual lifestyle change. Youth can work together with adults to explore attitudes and opinions on what needs to change. Activities need preparation and a high degree of flexibility, and the ability to renegotiate the aims as the project progresses. Participatory action needs to be structured and resourced (including financial support). Young people support policies to increase the use of economic tools to address affordability of healthier foods, to ensure supply chains are coherent with health policies, and to support active transport and design neighbourhoods for safe and healthful physical activity. Ypung people have the potential to act as powerful agents of change. The CO-CREATE project ran 15 Youth Alliances and 20 Dialogue Forums in which young people discussed their views and priorities with policy-makers, politicians, educators, health professionals, civil society groups and commercial operators.

CO-CREATE developed the MOVING database on physical activity policies to complement the NOURISHING database on food and nutrition policies. The large number of policies identified in European countries has been benchmarked against aspirational policy standards, and policy index scores have been calculated for the food and nutrition policies across Europe. The databases and tools developed will provide opportunities for future policy monitoring and evaluation.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Over the project period CO-CREATE has:

Developed the MOVING policy database for physical activity to complement the existing NOURISHING database on food and nutrition. Both databases have been refined and include an increasing number of verified, benchmarked policies from across Europe and international.

Provided a systematic review of published research literature addressing measures implemented to prevent adolescent overweight and obesity, and performed analyses of time trends in energy balance related behaviors in Europe and South Africa.

Performed system mapping with youth in six European countries (Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal and the UK) and South-Africa, and synthesized the results to identify the perceived drivers of childhood obesity among adolescents.

Organized Youth Alliances in five European countries (as listed above) using a project developed engagement protocol guided by the principles of participatory action research, resulting in a broad range of policy ideas proposed, formulated, and researched by youth.

Developed, tested and launched an in-person and a digital Dialogue Forum model, designed to promote youth leadership and empowerment and mitigate conflicts of interests, and implemented the model in organizing Dialogue forums with youth from the Youth Alliances and other stakeholders to discuss and refine youth selected policy ideas.

Developed a protocol for policy implementation and evaluation and investigated opportunities for its implementation in the countries listed above. Developed a systems dynamics model, including elements related to weight development, physical activity, food environment, social norms, and mental health.

Designed protocols for data collection, protection and sharing and how to address ethical issues (foreseen and unforeseen events), and collected research data at a central data server, laying the groundwork for open access data sharing.

Developed an extensive protocol for dissemination and exploitation of project results, including a home page for the project (www.CO-CREATE.eu) a youth-friendly, interactive web-page for Healthy Voices – youth driving change (www.worldobesity.org/healthy-voices) set up in collaboration with the STOP project, and extensive use of social media (including Instagram and twitter accounts).

Published scientific papers, policy briefs and reports (all available at the project main website), and maintained Healthy Voices website as a capacity building site for young people.

Launched a CO-CREATE documentary and video series outlining key project work, and highlighting the important need to include young people in policy and research drawing on CO-CREATE experiences.

Fostered strong collaborative relationships with other Horizon 2020 and European-wide projects, allowing identification of and building on synergies and cross-fertilization of ideas.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

CO-CREATE has the following key results:

Databases of policies which directly or indirectly influence food choices (NOURISHING) and physical activities (MOVING) across Europe; Valid, reliable, and easily accessible tools for monitoring and benchmarking policies which directly or indirectly can influence energy balance related behaviors (EBRB).

Large-scale investigations of changes in overweight and obesity rates, as well as EBRB across countries over time; specifically provide new information regarding such changes in relation to relevant European and national policies and differences according to socio-economic background of adolescents.

Visual system maps of policy-dependent multi-level drivers of adolescent obesity across five European countries and South Africa.

Novel and context-specific policy options - created with youth - that could contribute to overweight/obesity prevention among adolescents across Europe.

The CO-CREATE Youth Task Force suggested structural reforms of obesogenic environments, including reduced marketing of unhealthy products and fiscal policies for health investment.

Policy dialog forums between public and private sector stakeholders (including adolescents) designed to contribute towards wider acceptance and support for effective obesity prevention policies.

System dynamics modelling to assess and predict the potential impacts of selected evidence-based and co-created policy options for obesity prevention, including the socioeconomic distribution of any such impact.

youth-declaration-adoption-minutes.jpg

CO-CREATE activities with young people

CO-CREATE, participants at final conference