The CPO Piedmont participates in Science and Technology in childhood Obesity Policy (STOP), an international project that has just started at a European level thanks to a 10 million euro loan under the Horizon 2020 program.
Currently throughout Southern Europe, part of Central Europe and the United Kingdom, more than one child or boy of every ten, aged between 5 and 19, is obese, while in some countries such as Greece , Malta and Italy, one in three children is overweight.
The objective of the initiative is to identify and test the best prevention and treatment measures for obesity over the next four years, especially in the age group under 12 years. In the absence of adequate interventions, in fact, more than one adult in three, in some European countries, will become obese by 2025.
STOP is the biggest project to combat childhood obesity ever launched in Europe and has the participation of 31 partners coordinated by the Imperial College Business School in London. The Unit of Epidemiology of the University of Turin takes part in the project through the cohort of newborns Piccolipiù www.piccolipiu.it, which participates in the initiative along with 16 other cohorts of European children.
STOP will evaluate different interventions to reduce the impact of childhood obesity in Europe. For this purpose it is fundamental to understand how the environment in which we live modifies the behavior of children and the choices of parents, starting from the prenatal period.
The project also aims at empowering the food industry and other commercial actors, encouraging them to adopt innovative solutions to make children's consumption more healthy. Among other policies, STOP will evaluate the possibility for European governments to use tax (tax), information (nutrition labels) and marketing restrictions on food and beverages to counter child obesity.
To find out more: www.stopchildobesity.eu