PhD defence E. (Emma) van den Eynde

Below is a brief summary of the dissertation:

Childhood obesity is nationally and internationally a problem requiring urgent attention. In the Netherlands, one out of seven children has overweight or obesity, with higher prevalence for people with a lower socioeconomic position or non-western migration background. Obesity is a chronic disease with a multifactorial etiology, consisting of a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and environmental factors. Having obesity influences physical and psychosocial health and well-being and it has a range of societal consequences.

Nationally and internationally, there is general agreement about the need of an integrated approach which includes both prevention of and integrated care for childhood obesity. So, this integrated approach comprises collective prevention and individual prevention. Dutch integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity is described in the recently revised guideline, which contains the healthcare standard and the national model integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity. The program Child on a Healthier Weight (in Dutch: Kind naar Gezonder Gewicht, KnGG) supports the further implementation of the model, as a part of the integrated approach by JOGG.

For children and parents, a starting point for the integrated care trajectory is a comprehensive assessment of biomedical, psychosocial, and lifestyle factors that may play a role in the development and maintenance of obesity. Then a key element of integrated childhood obesity care is the combined lifestyle intervention; this is a treatment with coherent interventions addressing the components nutrition and physical activity with attention for behavior change. The involvement of parents is essential and of the whole family is preferable. Another key element is the coordinating professional who functions as an essential and central figure, coordinating the coherence of the support and care, working across domains.

In this dissertation, the following main research questions are addressed: How can childhood obesity care better connect to the needs and possibilities of children and their parents? What is needed for healthcare professionals to adopt a tailored approach which empowers and supports children and their parents with sustainable behavioral change towards a healthy lifestyle? The research is done in a multi- and interdisciplinary collaboration between the Obesity Center CGG at Erasmus MC Rotterdam, the Care for Obesity project at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and the LIKE consortium, funded by the Dutch Heart Foundation, ZonMw, and Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sport.