title: Promoting obesity prevention together with environmental sustainability.
abstract: There is mounting evidence that current food production, transport, land use and urban design negatively impact both climate change and obesity outcomes. Recommendations to prevent climate change provide an opportunity to improve environmental outcomes and alter our food and physical activity environments in favour of a 'healthier' energy balance. Hence, setting goals to achieve a more sustainable society offers a unique opportunity to reduce levels of obesity. In the case of children, this approach is supported with evidence that even from a young age they show emerging understandings of complex environmental issues and are capable of both internalizing positive environmental values and influencing their own environmental outcomes. Given young children's high levels of environmental awareness, it is easy to see how environmental sustainability messages may help educate and motivate children to make 'healthier' choices. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a new approach to tackling childhood obesity by tapping into existing social movements, such as environmental sustainability, in order to increase children's motivation for healthy eating and physical activity behaviours and thus foster more wholesome communities. We contend that a social marketing framework may be a particularly useful tool to foster behaviour change beneficial to both personal and environmental health by increasing perceived benefits and reducing perceived costs of behaviour change. Consequently, we propose a new framework which highlights suggested pathways for helping children initiate and sustain 'healthier' behaviours in order to inform future research and potentially childhood obesity intervention strategies.
authors: School of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC, Australia helen.skouteris@deakin.edu.au.
authors: Helen
authors: H
authors: Skouteris
authors: School of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC, Australia.
authors: Rachael
authors: R
authors: Cox
authors: University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA.
authors: Terry
authors: T
authors: Huang
authors: School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University, Deakin, VIC, Australia.
authors: Leonie
authors: L
authors: Rutherford
authors: Faculty of Education, Australian Catholic University, East Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
authors: Susan
authors: S
authors: Edwards
authors: School of Education, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia.
authors: Amy
authors: A
authors: Cutter-Mackenzie
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002755:Choice Behavior; D057231:Climate Change; D005518:Food Preferences; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D009043:Motor Activity; D009765:Obesity / Q000517:prevention & control*; D012931:Social Environment; D040241:Social Marketing
keywords: children; environmental sustainability; obesity prevention; social marketing