Healthy lifestyle programme aims to reach 3.9 million Europeans by 2016

EPODE International Network, the world’s largest obesity prevention network, has announced the launch of an innovative project to scale up efforts to prevent childhood obesity across Europe.

The OPEN project will see 11 community initiatives benefit from tailored support to extend their work to reduce childhood obesity by 2016. 

It aims to reach almost four million people across Europe, including 975,000 children and adolescents, with the goal of helping individuals and communities to achieve and sustain active, healthy lifestyles.  Currently in Europe, one in three 11-year-olds are overweight or obese.

Over the next three years, the OPEN project will work with programmes and initiatives based in Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, France, Greece, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

Many of these programmes use the EPODE model which aims to prevent childhood obesity by delivering programmes on a local level that create everyday norms and settings for children to enjoy healthy eating, active play and recreation.

Jean-Michel Borys, EPODE International Network (EIN) European Network Director and General Secretary, said, “At EPODE International Network, we believe that the most promising way to tackle childhood obesity is via the community approach, mobilizing all stakeholders, from the public to the private sphere, from political representatives to actors on the ground.

"That’s why, for the last 20 years, we’ve focused our efforts on how we can bring all sectors together to create and deliver local programmes that will make a genuine difference to families taking part. We’re delighted to be able to support the OPEN project, helping hundreds of thousands more children to lead a healthy, active lifestyle by 2016.”

EPODE International Network promotes and implements the EPODE model, launched in 2004. The EPODE model tackles the complex causes of obesity in four ways; through public-private partnerships, political commitment and support, social marketing techniques and evaluation.

The aim of the EPODE model is to prevent childhood obesity by delivering programmes on a local level that create everyday norms and settings for children to enjoy healthy eating, active play and recreation. While working to the same EPODE principles, delivery of the model is adapted to suit each community’s needs.