Workshops 2016
The dialogue at Uppsala Health Summit will start out from the WHO-Commission’s recommendation on ending childhood obesity. Our purpose is to deliver concrete suggestions on the next steps to take on different levels and by various stakeholders. Each day offers four parallel workshops.
Workshops at the summit
- Policy tools to drive change
- Migration and the food environment
- The need for food industry actions and innovations
- Healthy eating for school children - today and for life
- Individual and societal responsibilities - ethical dilemmas
- Innovations needed in retail and in the food value chain
- Initiate, manage and evaluate multi-stakeholder interventions: ECHO-zones
- Empowering towards healthy behaviours
About the workshop:
Tax on sugar has been implemented in different forms in many countries. Some say they are efficient in reducing sugar-intake among populations at risk. Meanwhile, critics argue the effects are disproportional and unfair. Whether taxes or subsidies shift consumption away from energy-dense unhealthy products towards healthier food, and thereby reduce the prevalence of overweight/obesity, will depend on (i) how responsive demand is to prices; or the price elasticity in economics jargon, and (ii) to what extent consumers do not substitute the taxed good for other energy dense food.
At Uppsala Health Summit we will look into the argument for introducing taxes or subventions, given different economic conditions, and what other types of macro-level regulations that can have the desired effect. We will also discuss opportunities of using methods associated with behavioural economics such as "nudging" .
Introductory speakers:
- Dr Lisa M. Powell, Distinguished Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health
- Professor Kaisa Kotakorpi, Turku School of Economics
- Dr. Julie S. Downs, Carnegie Mellon University.
Workshop prepared by:
- Dr. Erik Grönqvist, Researcher, Department of Economics; Director of Health Economic Forum, Uppsala University
- Dr Anna-Sara Lind, Associate Professor of Public Law and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Law, Uppsala University
Migration and the Food Environment
About the workshop:
Moving from one place to another, whether from a rural to an urban area, or over larger distances to a new country, means encountering new diets. The adjustment can be difficult, both on a behavioral and physical level.
Migrant populations bring with them a genetic setup, culture and diet which can create dietary problems such as overweight and obesity in the new environment, especially if the new diets are “western” in the sense that they are processed and contain high levels of fat, salt and sugar. Migrants, including children born from migrant parents are vulnerable, yet their needs so far are neglected or underestimated.
In this workshop we will discuss strategies to address childhood obesity among migrants and the double burden of malnutrition that many countries face (when under-nutrition and obesity co-exist in one country or setting).The aim of the workshop is to identify:
- Current knowledge gaps and need for data to better understand childhood obesity problems among first migrant and in-country born migrant adolescent populations
- The needs for tailor-made nutrition messages
- How to increase awareness in primary healthcare systems of this risk group and how to ease the disease burden
Introductory Speakers:
- Dr. Evelyn Crayton, Professor Emeritus, Auborn University, Past President, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
- Dr. Leps Malete, Associate Professor, Michigan State University
- Dr. Rodolfo M Nayga Jr., Professor and Tyson Endowed Chair in Food Policy, University of Arkansas.
Workshop prepared by:
- Dr. Linley Chiwona-Karltun, Senior Researcher, Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Åsa Andersson, Dietician, Uppsala County Council and Sarah Hamed, Research Assistant, Uppsala University.
The Need for Food Industry Actions and Innovations
About the workshop:
In this workshop, we will look into how industry can help children and their parents into healthier food patterns through strategic actions, innovations and effective communication. Following examples from the Danish Whole Grain Partnership and experiences from the CLYMBOL project we will discuss innovations and strategies for reformulations of foods and for providing consumers with the right information for the right decisions. For example: How can labelling be used to educate consumers and what should they say? Smaller portion sizes have been suggested as part of the solution towards healthy eating, but do they work? What are the strategies to reduce sugar in products while avoiding being “anti-business”? Are health claims or other health communication strategies needed?
Our focus will be on the identification of barriers and ways around them.
Inspirational Speakers:
- Susanne Bryngelsson, Managing Director, Swedish Nutrition Foundation (SNF)
- Cecilia Mandrup, Danish Whole Grain Partnership
Workshop prepared by:
- Professor Rikard Landberg, Chalmers University of Technology and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Dr Cecilia Mark-Herbert, Associate Professor, Marketing and Environmental Management, Department of Economics Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Healthy Eating for School Children – Today and for Life
About the workshop:
Obesity prevention and treatments require truly multi-sectoral approaches. When it comes to tackling obesity in children, the education sector must be involved. Children spend a significant part of their childhood in schools and there is a unique opportunity to promote physical activity and healthy eating while they are there. But there are many interests competing for teachers and children´s time and resources, making it more difficult than it sounds.
In our workshop Healthy Eating for School Children – Today and for Life, representatives from different sectors and from different parts of the world will meet to discuss the role of schools in promoting health and nutrition literacy for school children and how sucessful school policies for a healthy school environment can be developed and implemented. Finally we will bring up the evidence gaps and research needs related to the role of schools in reducing childhood obesity.
Introductory speakers:
- Professor Sidiga Washi, Incoming president of International Federation for Home Economics (IFHE). Professor Washi will discuss health and nutrition literacy for school children with a focus on the double burden of under- and over-nutrition and gender and the specific problems in African countries.
- Dr. Iveta Pudule, Senior Public Health Analyst at Centre for Disease Prevention and Control of Latvia - Centre for Disease Prevention and Control of Latvia. Mrs Pudule will share the experience of implementing healthy food environments in and around schools in Latvia.
- Dr. Kristiina Janhonen, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Helsinki. Dr Janhonen will present examples from Finland on the work schools do to improve health and nutrition literary in school children.
- Dr. Hanna Sepp, Senior Lecturer, School of Education and Environment, Kristianstad University. Dr Sepp will provide practical examples of how primary school can work to improve food literacy and what to include in teachers training.
Workshop prepared by:
- Dr Anna Karin Lindroos, Researcher, National Food Agency and University of Gothenburg
- Dr Karin Hjälmeskog, Senior Lecturer, Department of Education, Uppsala University
- Åsa Brugård Konde, Nutritionist, The National Food Agency.
Individual and Societal Responsibilities -ethical dilemmas
About the workshop:
At least to some extent, obesity depends on choices. But choices also involve responsibility. Who is accountable for the current obesity situation, and who should do something about it? In particular, who should be liable for the consequences of actions of individuals who cannot be held responsible themselves, such as children? Where does individual responsibility meet social duty?
In this workshop we will discuss allocations of responsibility for prevention and alleviation of childhood obesity from an ethical point of view. Our aim is to contribute to a thoughtful and constructive conversation around the ethical issues that may occur in policies and programs addressing obesity. Our starting point is that such policies need to be sound from an ethical point of view not just because it is moral, but also because adequate consideration of ethical issues is a prerequisite for successful implementation, since proposed policies are likely to meet with less hurdles and be more efficient.
We will focus our discussion on the specific recommendations in the WHO document Ending Childhood Obesity and aim to produce a ‘checklist’ of ethical considerations – i.e. things that, at the minimum, should be taken into consideration when evaluating some policy measure targeting childhood obesity prevention or alleviation. Such measures include sugar taxes, school-based interventions against a background of inequity, and family-based care and allocation of responsibility.
Introductory speakers:
- Dr. Signild Vallgårda, Professor, Copenhagen University
- Dr Garrath D. Willams, Senior lecturer in philosophy, Lancaster University
Workshop prepared by:
- Dr. Per Sandin, Senior Lecturer, The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Dr. Deborah Mascalzoni, Senior Resarcher Centre for Research and Bioethics, Uppsala University
- Dr. Helena Röcklinsberg, The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Dr. Jessica Nihlén-Fahlquist, Senior Lecturer, Uppsala University.
Innovations Needed in Retail and in the Food Value Chain
About the workshop:
The goal of this workshop is to find ways to bend global and local value chains so that they can have a positive impact on children's health and contribute towards reducing childhood obesity. This means identifying the source of child obesity, and where in the chain we can intervene with strategies, policies, and organizational innovations. Can these strategies/policies be developed in a way that they also become instruments of sustainable development – say by inclusion of farmers and local industry?
The focus areas for the workshop are:
- Understanding further the role of the global value chains in transforming food consumption patterns in developing countries
- To explore alternative institutional innovations and organizational forms of global food giants, in ways that will move towards reducing (bending) the trend of child obesity
- To explore ways of involving the local food value chains – including farmers – into contributing to improve nutritional intake and food quality while at the same time making it profitable to farmers. In other words so that "ending child obesity" can be a profitable business and a vehicle for rural development.
Introductory speakers:
- Dr. Lucia Reisch, Professor of Consumer Behaviour and consumer policy, Copenhagen, Business School
- Louise Ungerth, Head of consumer and environmental affairs, Stockholm Consumer Cooperative Society
Workshop prepared by:
- Professor Konstantin Karantininis, Dept. of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SLU.
Initiate, manage and evaluate multi-stakeholder interventions: ECHO-zones
About the workshop:
The WHO report Ending Childhood Obesity calls for integrated intervention strategies and approaches to curb the development of childhood obesity. Creating "ECHO-zones" is an attempt to convert the recommendations in the WHO report to into concrete actions. “ECHO” stands for Ending CHildhood Obesity and “zone” refers to a geographical area, where the aim is to prevent and treat childhood obesity in a multi-facetted way. This involves physical activity, food products and eating behaviour as well as environmental and psycho-social factors. The aim is to bring together relevant actors and stakeholders within a geographical area to decide how to bring about change for children and adolescents. The focus is on prevention, but also on treatment of already overweight or obese children and adolescents. This is an ambition to end the childhood obesity epidemic with a systems approach.
The focus areas for the workshop are to define conditions for:
- An ECHO-zone
- Initiating an ECHO-zone
- Networking between ECHO-zones
- Evaluating ECHO-zones
Introductory speakers:
- Dr. Frank Bloomfield, Professor, Director Liggins Institute, University of Auckland
- Dr. Loretta Warnakulasuriya, Project Coordinator, Lions Project, Negombo, Sri Lanka.
Workshop prepared by:
- Professor Peter Bergsten, Department of Medical Cell Biology Uppsala University
- Dr. Anders Forslund, Associate Professor and Marie Dahlbom, Research Nurse, Study Coordinator, Uppsala University Hospital, Department of Women´s and Children´s Health, Uppsala University.
Empowering towards Healthy Behaviours
About the workshop:
The majority of the public health interventions today, including many of the national nutrition recommendations and guidelines, are heavily focused on advising and creating awareness – the focus being on the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how’. Yet, evidence clearly shows that awareness alone is not enough to change behavior, let alone sustain it over a life-time. For this, we need a combination of approaches or strategies that could together create a catalytic reaction to change, with a potential to be sustained. These include:
- A constructive and supportive social environment that empowers children and their care givers, thereby enhancing their autonomy
- Fulfillment of knowledge and skills requirements needed to make the change
- An enabling physical environment that makes the change possible
- Supportive technology to aid in the process of behavior change
- Integrated efforts from multiple actors such as municipalities, schools, retailers, parents, healthcare and civil society human behaviours occur in a continuum
In this workshop we will discuss what strategies and partnerships are needed to better help people change or maintain healthy behaviors and the initial steps we can take towards achieving this goal. We will depart from some real-life examples as a basis for our discussion.
We will look at 1) what is needed to implement approaches or strategies that empower individuals and improve their autonomy, 2) what kind of multi-sectoral and practical partnerships we need to make this work, 3) how technology and eHealth services can better meet user needs.
All this will be discussed in the context of three settings: rural and urban populations in low-middle-income countries; and vulnerable populations in high income countries.
Introductory speakers:
- Dr. Pilvikki Absetz, Research Director (University of Eastern Finland, UEF), Adjunct Professor of Health Promotion (University of Tampere, UTA), CEO (Collaborative Care Systems Finland, CCSF)
- Michael Quarshie, CEO and Co-Founder, Wellness Foundry
Workshop prepared by:
- Dr. Meena Daivadanam, Senior Lecturer, Department of Food, Nutrition and Dietetics, Uppsala University
- Jo Anne Dahl, Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Uppsala University
- Åsa Cajander, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Dept. of Information Technology, Uppsala University
- Isto Huvila, Professor, Library and Information Science, Dept. of ALM, Uppsala University