Kobes Annita, Kretschmer Tina, Timmerman Margaretha C
University of Groningen, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Department of Pedagogical and Educational Sciences, Groningen 9712TJ, the Netherlands.
Health Policy Open. 2021 Dec 1;3:100056. doi: 10.1016/j.hpopen.2021.100056. eCollection 2022 Dec.
Effective obesity prevention requires intervening at all levels of society, including the governmental level. Policy interventions at the governmental level are especially promising as they tend to involve minimal individual effort while, at the same time, reach many people. The amount of state-level obesity-related legislation in the United States has increased over the years, and several laws were installed in contexts that reach young people, such as schools. Given this increase in state-level obesity-related legislation targeting youth, we tested whether the quantity of obesity-related legislation in U.S. states was associated with adolescent BMI and overweight/obesity prevalence. Linear and multilevel analyses showed that the quantity of physical activity-related legislation was associated with lower overweight/obesity prevalence yet with very modest effect size ( = -0.002, = .042). Our results underline the likely importance of obesity-related legislation. In addition, the value of examining both BMI and overweight/obesity prevalence when evaluating interventions is demonstrated.
有效的肥胖预防需要在社会的各个层面进行干预，包括政府层面。政府层面的政策干预尤其具有前景，因为它们往往只需个人付出极少努力，同时却能惠及许多人。多年来，美国州一级与肥胖相关的立法数量有所增加，并且有几部法律是在涉及年轻人的背景下制定的，比如学校。鉴于针对青少年的州一级肥胖相关立法有所增加，我们检验了美国各州肥胖相关立法的数量是否与青少年的体重指数（BMI）以及超重/肥胖患病率相关。线性分析和多水平分析表明，与体育活动相关的立法数量与较低的超重/肥胖患病率相关，但效应量非常小（β = -0.002，p = 0.042）。我们的研究结果强调了肥胖相关立法可能具有的重要性。此外，还证明了在评估干预措施时同时考察BMI和超重/肥胖患病率的价值。
