SPH Receives $3.4 Million to Study Causes of Childhood Obesity

(Oct. 20, 2006) -- A team of University of Minnesota School of Public Health researchers has received a five-year $3.43 million grant from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to examine the spectrum of causes of childhood obesity. The Etiology of Childhood Obesity (ECHO) study will be one of the first to consider obesity risk factors at the individual, family, school, and neighborhood levels.

"To date, intervention research on childhood obesity has been dominated by studies aimed at impacting a few single causes of the epidemic," says School of Public Health professor Leslie Lytle, Ph.D., primary investigator of ECHO. "That research has produced mixed results, and it has not determined the most effective interventions to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity."

ECHO will collect data from various life arenas to analyze how different factors contribute to childhood obesity. The researchers will recruit 400 youth between the ages of 10 and 13 and one of their biological parents. Data from each child will be collected from four distinct levels:

• Individual measures--will include fasting blood glucose, blood lipids, blood pressure, socioeconomic status, and data taken from accelerometers to measure activity levels and dietary recalls to assess energy intake.
• Family measures--will include family medical history, meal and activity patterns of a parent, foods available in the home, media inventory, and patterns of media use.
  School measures--will include school lunch policies, physical education offerings, school administration policies, vending machine presence, and a la carte and school store inventory.
• Neighborhood measures--will include Geographical Information System (GIS) data on the presence of sidewalks, bike paths, convenience stores, and fast food restaurants within a 2-mile radius of each child's home and school.
  

The study is interdisciplinary and includes a number of University of Minnesota departments and schools, including urban planning, nursing, and kinesiology, as well as partnering colleagues at Health Partners and Ohio State University.

Study participants will be recruited from the Health Partners provider base in the seven-county Twin Cities metro area. Researchers will sample potential participants by zip code to ensure economic, racial, and ethnic diversity and will follow the participants over the next two years. Researchers from Health Partners are collaborators in the research.

The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact:
Kris Stouffer, School of Public Health, 612-624-4460
Liz Wulderk, Academic Health Center, 612-624-5680