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Nuclear Techniques to Assess Body Composition in Children and Adolescents as a Risk Factor in the Development of Chronic Diseases
Closed for proposals
Project Type
Project Code
E43024CRP
1769Approved Date
Status
Start Date
Expected End Date
Completed Date
16 March 2016Description
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has highlighted childhood obesity as one of the most serious health challenges of the 21st century. Obese children are at greater risk of non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke in adulthood. Rapid urbanisation, unhealthy diet and increasingly sedentary lifestyle have contributed to the increasing prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity, which has become a growing public health concern also in low- to middle-income countries. IAEA has recently supported a CRP and Regional TC Projects in Asia and Latin America, which focused on body fat and metabolic risk in children, and evaluation of healthy eating and physical activity interventions. There is now the opportunity to perform follow-on studies to obtain longitudinal data in the same children, in line with the recommendations of the International Diabetes Federation, and to initiate new studies aimed at evaluating lifestyle interventions targeted at obese children and adolescents. Stable isotope techniques are the reference methods of assessing body composition and total daily energy expenditure in the community setting. The overall goal of the proposed CRP is to contribute new information regarding the body composition, metabolic health and energy expenditure of children and adolescents to assist public health policy makers in the design and evaluation of interventions aimed at reducing childhood obesity and hence reducing longer-term health risks.
Objectives
The overall objective is to contribute new information regarding the body composition, energy expenditure and metabolic health of children and adolescents from different settings.
Specific objectives
Assess body composition and energy expenditure by stable isotope techniques in children and adolescents assessed in an earlier CRP and TC regional projects. Follow-up measures on previously evaluated individuals will enable a tracking of variables in a representative group of normal-weight, overweight and obese individuals (defined according to the WHO criteria). Recruitment of additional obese individuals in different settings will provide the opportunity to add to the smaller numbers in this category of the current dataset.
Assess the associations between anthropometry, body composition, physical activity level and metabolic health in normal-weight, overweight and obese children and adolescents using stable isotope techniques and establish improved predictors of future health risk.
Impact
Timely and unique evidence of high levels of objectively measured adiposity and the associated increase in metabolic risk with increasing age in children and adolescence has been provided. In addition the evidence has been drawn from diverse communities and environments in ten countries. Information has been provided that will be useful for policy and advocacy within countries and globally. The capacity, skills and professional networks of key investigators and their institutions has been increased and the potential for future harmonisation, collaboration and research is well placed among participants in the CRP.
Relevance
Highly relevant. Global levels of overweight and obesity continue to rise, particularly in the developing world. The World Health Organisation (WHO) endorsed a global action plan for prevention and control of NCDs at the 66th World Health assembly in May 2013, which includes targets and indicators related to adolescent obesity and physical activity. The relevant targets are a 10% relative reduction of insufficiently active adolescents, defined as less than 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity activity daily, and to halt the rise in overweight and obese adolescents by 2020. A new commission for the prevention of childhood obesity has been established by the WHO (May 2014) which underlines the importance of having baseline data from countries so that impacts of interventions may be assessed. At the 2014 World Health assembly, the Director General highlighted the issue of the increase worldwide of childhood obesity. The IAEA works closely with other international bodies including the WHO and is now in a position to share the findings of this body of work.