TY - JOUR
T1 - Reframing the early childhood obesity prevention narrative through an equitable nurturing approach
AU - Skouteris, Helen
AU - Bergmeier, Heidi J.
AU - Berns, Scott D.
AU - Betancourt, Jeanette
AU - Boynton-Jarrett, Renée
AU - Davis, Martha B.
AU - Gibbons, Kay
AU - Pérez-Escamilla, Rafael
AU - Story, Mary
N1 - Funding Information:
This article is a direct outcome from Salzburg Global Seminar’s Health and Health Care Innovation program, Halting the Childhood Obesity Epidemic: Identifying Decisive Interventions in Complex Systems. Between December 14 and December 19, 2019, worldwide experts in nutrition, health, obesity prevention, child development, and advocacy convened at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria. Together they reviewed and built on existing strategies to enable all children to grow up at a healthy weight. They collaborated on new policy ideas to better support families and communities, focusing on the most socially disadvantaged populations. This project was supported by Salzburg Global Seminar. Support for this project was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the view of the Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Maternal & Child Nutrition published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - High-quality mother–child interactions during the first 2,000 days, from conception to age 5 years, are considered crucial for preventing obesity development during early life stages. However, mother–child dyads interact within and are influenced by broader socio-ecological contexts involved in shaping child development outcomes, including nutrition. Hence, the coexistence of both undernutrition and obesity has been noted in inequitable social conditions, with drivers of undernutrition and overnutrition in children sharing common elements, such as poverty and food insecurity. To date, a holistic life-course approach to childhood obesity prevention that includes an equitable developmental perspective has not emerged. The World Health Organization (WHO) Nurturing Care Framework provides the foundation for reframing the narrative to understand childhood obesity through the lens of an equitable nurturing care approach to child development from a life-course perspective. In this perspective, we outline our rationale for reframing the childhood narrative by integrating an equitable nurturing care approach to childhood obesity prevention. Four key elements of reframing the narrative include: (a) extending the focus from the current 1,000 to 2,000 days (conception to 5 years); (b) highlighting the importance of nurturing mutually responsive child-caregiver connections to age 5; (c) recognition of racism and related stressors, not solely race/ethnicity, as part of adverse child experiences and social determinants of obesity; and (d) addressing equity by codesigning interventions with socially marginalized families and communities. An equitable, asset-based engagement of families and communities could drive the transformation of policies, systems and social conditions to prevent childhood obesity.
AB - High-quality mother–child interactions during the first 2,000 days, from conception to age 5 years, are considered crucial for preventing obesity development during early life stages. However, mother–child dyads interact within and are influenced by broader socio-ecological contexts involved in shaping child development outcomes, including nutrition. Hence, the coexistence of both undernutrition and obesity has been noted in inequitable social conditions, with drivers of undernutrition and overnutrition in children sharing common elements, such as poverty and food insecurity. To date, a holistic life-course approach to childhood obesity prevention that includes an equitable developmental perspective has not emerged. The World Health Organization (WHO) Nurturing Care Framework provides the foundation for reframing the narrative to understand childhood obesity through the lens of an equitable nurturing care approach to child development from a life-course perspective. In this perspective, we outline our rationale for reframing the childhood narrative by integrating an equitable nurturing care approach to childhood obesity prevention. Four key elements of reframing the narrative include: (a) extending the focus from the current 1,000 to 2,000 days (conception to 5 years); (b) highlighting the importance of nurturing mutually responsive child-caregiver connections to age 5; (c) recognition of racism and related stressors, not solely race/ethnicity, as part of adverse child experiences and social determinants of obesity; and (d) addressing equity by codesigning interventions with socially marginalized families and communities. An equitable, asset-based engagement of families and communities could drive the transformation of policies, systems and social conditions to prevent childhood obesity.
KW - child development
KW - codesign
KW - equity
KW - historic and racial trauma
KW - mother–child interactions
KW - nurturing care
KW - obesity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092665293&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/mcn.13094
DO - 10.1111/mcn.13094
M3 - Article
C2 - 33067918
AN - SCOPUS:85092665293
VL - 17
SP - 1
EP - 6
JO - Maternal and Child Nutrition
JF - Maternal and Child Nutrition
SN - 1740-8695
IS - 1
M1 - e13094
ER -