Physical Activity and Eating in the Transition from Childhood to Emerging Adulthood

Limited physical activity and unhealthy eating increase the risk of non-communicable diseases and conditions (e.g., obesity, cardio metabolic diseases) that are leading causes of mortality, and reduced quality of life. During adolescence, when the individual is expected to take increasingly more responsibility for own health, physical activity declines and eating patterns become unhealthier, changes that last well into adulthood. Hence, effective policies and interventions to uphold physical activity and healthy eating in the passage from late middle childhood to emerging adulthood entail the prospect of making substantial improvements in public health. To identify processes toward physical inactivity and unhealthy eating, including unravelling mechanisms behind gender and social disparities, we propose to test an ecological and developmental model of the determinants of physical activity and eating. To accomplish this we will use data from The Trondheim Early Secure Study (TESS), a study of a thousand children assessed biennially from the age of 4. We have measured physical acitvity and eating behavior in addition to a range of potential determinants of these behaviors, capturing adolescent (e.g., body-composition, self-concept, screen-time), parent (e.g., socioeconomic position, physical activity, parenting), and community factors (e.g., access to recreational areas) by means of objective measures, tests, interviews, and questionnaires. We will retest this sample at the 1st and 3rd years of senior high school. Further, to reveal cross-cultural differences in determinants of physical activity and eating, hypotheses will also be tested in two large, non-Norwegian data sets (ALSPAC (UK, n=15,247) and Generation R (The Netherlands, n=9,778)). The project will be completed by 2025.

Limited physical activity and unhealthy eating increase the risk of non-communicable diseases and conditions (e.g., obesity, cardio metabolic diseases) that are leading causes of mortality, and reduced quality of life. During adolescence, when the individual is expected to take increasingly more responsibility for own health, physical activity declines and eating patterns become unhealthier, changes that last well into adulthood. Hence, effective policies and interventions to uphold physical activity and healthy eating in the passage from late middle childhood to emerging adulthood entail the prospect of making substantial improvements in public health. Such policies and interventions must be built on causal knowledge, accounting for the interplay between factors at different levels of influence, which is largely lacking at present. To identify processes toward physical inactivity and unhealthy eating, including unravelling mechanisms behind gender and social disparities, we propose to test an ecological and developmental model of the determinants of physical activity and eating, and to accomplish this--retest an extensively examined community sample at the 1st and 3rd years of senior high school. Further, to reveal cross-cultural differences of presumed working mechanisms, hypotheses will also be tested in two large, non-Norwegian data sets. Method: A stratified sample (n=1,150; 82% consent) of the 2003 and 2004 birth cohorts in Trondheim tested (4-5 hours) biennially from age 4 to 18. Outcomes: Physical activity (objectively measured) and eating behavior (parent- and self-reported). Predictors: Adolescent (e.g., body-composition, self-concept, screen-time) and parent factors (e.g., socioeconomic position, physical activity, parenting) captured by objective measures, tests, interviews, questionnaires; Community factors (e.g., access to recreational areas). Data sets used for comparison: ALSPAC (UK, n=15,247) and Generation R (The Netherlands, n=9,778).