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Municipal policies and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm, Sweden: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Promoting physical activity and healthy eating habits by structural measures that reach most children in a society is presumably the most sustainable way of preventing development of overweight and obesity in childhood. The main purpose of the present study was to analyse whether policie...

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Autores principales: Guldbrandsson, Karin, Wennerstad, Karin Modig, Rasmussen, Finn
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732589/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19650906
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-47
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author Guldbrandsson, Karin
Wennerstad, Karin Modig
Rasmussen, Finn
author_facet Guldbrandsson, Karin
Wennerstad, Karin Modig
Rasmussen, Finn
author_sort Guldbrandsson, Karin
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Promoting physical activity and healthy eating habits by structural measures that reach most children in a society is presumably the most sustainable way of preventing development of overweight and obesity in childhood. The main purpose of the present study was to analyse whether policies and plans of action at the central level in municipalities increased the number of measures that aim to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren aged six to 16. Another purpose was to analyse whether demographic and socio-economic characteristics were associated with the level of such measures. METHODS: Questionnaires were used to collect data from 25 municipalities and 18 town districts in Stockholm County, Sweden. The questions were developed to capture municipal structural work and factors facilitating physical activity and the development of healthy eating habits for children. Local policy documents and plans of action were gathered. Information regarding municipal demographic and socio-economic characteristics was collected from public statistics. RESULTS: Policy documents and plans of action in municipalities and town districts did not seem to influence the number of measures aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm County. Municipal demographic and socio-economic characteristics were, however, shown to influence the number of measures. In town districts with a high total population size, and in municipalities and town districts with a high proportion of adults with more than 12 years of education, a higher level of health-promoting measures was found. In municipalities with a high annual population growth, the number of measures was lower than in municipalities with a lower annual population growth. Another key finding was the lack of agreement between what was reported in the questionnaires regarding existence and contents of local policies and plans of action and what was actually found when these documents were scrutinized. CONCLUSION: Policy documents and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren aged six to 16 in municipalities and town districts in Stockholm County did not seem to have an impact on the local level of measures. Demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the municipalities and town districts were on the other hand associated with local health-promoting measures.
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spelling pubmed-27325892009-08-27 Municipal policies and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm, Sweden: a cross-sectional study Guldbrandsson, Karin Wennerstad, Karin Modig Rasmussen, Finn Implement Sci Research Article BACKGROUND: Promoting physical activity and healthy eating habits by structural measures that reach most children in a society is presumably the most sustainable way of preventing development of overweight and obesity in childhood. The main purpose of the present study was to analyse whether policies and plans of action at the central level in municipalities increased the number of measures that aim to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren aged six to 16. Another purpose was to analyse whether demographic and socio-economic characteristics were associated with the level of such measures. METHODS: Questionnaires were used to collect data from 25 municipalities and 18 town districts in Stockholm County, Sweden. The questions were developed to capture municipal structural work and factors facilitating physical activity and the development of healthy eating habits for children. Local policy documents and plans of action were gathered. Information regarding municipal demographic and socio-economic characteristics was collected from public statistics. RESULTS: Policy documents and plans of action in municipalities and town districts did not seem to influence the number of measures aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm County. Municipal demographic and socio-economic characteristics were, however, shown to influence the number of measures. In town districts with a high total population size, and in municipalities and town districts with a high proportion of adults with more than 12 years of education, a higher level of health-promoting measures was found. In municipalities with a high annual population growth, the number of measures was lower than in municipalities with a lower annual population growth. Another key finding was the lack of agreement between what was reported in the questionnaires regarding existence and contents of local policies and plans of action and what was actually found when these documents were scrutinized. CONCLUSION: Policy documents and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren aged six to 16 in municipalities and town districts in Stockholm County did not seem to have an impact on the local level of measures. Demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the municipalities and town districts were on the other hand associated with local health-promoting measures. BioMed Central 2009-08-03 /pmc/articles/PMC2732589/ /pubmed/19650906 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-47 Text en Copyright © 2009 Guldbrandsson et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Guldbrandsson, Karin
Wennerstad, Karin Modig
Rasmussen, Finn
Municipal policies and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm, Sweden: a cross-sectional study
title Municipal policies and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm, Sweden: a cross-sectional study
title_full Municipal policies and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm, Sweden: a cross-sectional study
title_fullStr Municipal policies and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm, Sweden: a cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed Municipal policies and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm, Sweden: a cross-sectional study
title_short Municipal policies and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in Stockholm, Sweden: a cross-sectional study
title_sort municipal policies and plans of action aiming to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits among schoolchildren in stockholm, sweden: a cross-sectional study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732589/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19650906
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-47
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