Overview of Cardiovascular Prevention: Nutrition and Obesity

Spain: The Observatory for Nutrition and Obesity: an initiative to reduce the burden of obesity

By Regina Dalmau, National CVD Prevention Coordinator for Spain (2018)

Aim

Promote preventive activities to reduce the burden of obesity in Spain, with a special focus on young people. 

Target Group

Obese young people and adults

Method

The project is chaired by Dr Valentin Fuster, and different members of Scientific Societies, organisations involved in obesity prevention and nutrition, local health authorities and consumers associations work together towards the goals of the Observatory.

The Observatory is in charge to update the situation of obesity in our country and promote different preventive activities, as well as regulatory measures to facilitate the access to a healthy diet. Different nutritional and physical activity surveys have provided important data on child obesity trends, and have reinforced the role of the Observatory, as a key instrument to set priorities in obesity prevention.

Metrics (more details here):

• Prevalence of obesity in adults and children, prevalence of overweighted people.
• Time spent in sport activities (adults and children), time spent in sedentary activities
• Dietary habits (adherence to Mediterranean Diet)
• Analysis of the market management and publicity campaigning on food and drinks...

Actions:

• Plan to collaborate in the improvement of the daily diet 
• NAOS strategy (strategy to improve nutrition, physical activity and reduce obesity
• Campaigns focused on improving diet and promoting physical activities in children

Main results

The different interventions and campaigns are still in progress and the main results are not published so far. 

More information

Visit this website.  

Read the "Country of the Month" report from Spain to get more detailed information about CVD Prevention in this country.  

Note: The content of this article reflects the personal opinion of the author/s and is not necessarily the official position of the European Society of Cardiology.