The HEPCOM project was set up to support the prevention of overweight and obesity among children and

young people. It aims to increase the number and quality of local community and school interventions
to boost healthy eating and physical activity. To achieve this, HEPCOM promotes the dissemination and
use of high-quality tools of 32 EU-funded projects on its platform: they are easily accessible for policy makers
and professional practitioners who are looking for inspiration.
In this newsletter, projects and related tools are presented according to the way in which they contribute to
the fight against childhood obesity. 4 strategies were distinguished: to issue guidelines, to raise awareness,
to remedy inequality and to research root causes. In addition, per each of this group, tools are organised
according to the specific stage of the management cycle in which they are deployed, including
Policy/Vision, Strategy, Action planning, Implementation and Evaluation.

GUIDELINES FOR ACTION

This newsletter issue looks more closely at projects
and tools able to give support to develop guidelines
for action. Many of these projects have opted for a
broad approach, paying attention to most or all of
the management cycle. The group includes:

HEPS
SHAPE UP
EPODE
PoHeFa
Healthy Regions
Healthy Children

A SELECTION OF TOOLS
Although the projects concerned have developed guidelines for action tackling the same problem childhood
obesity-, they do not necessarily share a same vision. As such, Healthy Regions offers the perspective of
strategic regional action in the procurement of public health with a strong emphasis on the innovation
/development advantage this could entail for the region. Meanwhile, the HEPS vision starts from the
health promoting schools approach, described in the HEPS Advocacy Guide. This approach focuses on
cooperation in the promotion of healthy behaviours on school-, rather than on regional level.
The projects have developed diverging strategies to parallel their diverging vision. EPODE, for example,
has thoroughly developed its own methodology, which is built on a multi-stakeholder approach: it grants a
central role to a local programme manager who organises collaboration of local actors, while linking back
to private partners, independent scientific committees and institutional actors. SHAPE UP, on the other
hand, developed its own Methodological Guidebook, which makes the case for childrens action competence
instead. HEPS declares in its policy recommendations how it favours sustainable growth and climate at the
top of the agenda, with health as a mainstreaming tool on the regional and local level. PoHeFa finally, sets
out its triangulation method in its conceptual paper.
The projects offer tools to plan action according to their determined vision and strategy: Healthy Children
offers a planning tool according to SMTTE; a model that sets out five essential elements for successful
planning. PoHeFa, meanwhile, offers examples of policy workshops with advise for the decision-making
and planning phase.
Closely linked to action planning tools, the projects also offer practical advice and tools to start
implementing their strategies. Healthy Regions, for example, made accessible a dialogue tool to kick-start
a regional development process, while PoHeFa shares its brief intervention training pack; a guide for the
training of professionals who might be in a position to give health advice.
Finally, most guidelines for action projects include evaluation tools to monitor the progress of the
implementation of these guidelines. To do this, SHAPE UP offers a survey (Baseline survey & guidance) to
measure a students willingness and capacity to be actively involved in the health project, as well as templates
to monitor the progress of the project development in the city. Healthy Children on the other hand, proposes a smilies evaluation form, developed for evaluation by children.
These tools -and many more- are available on the HEPCOM portal.

HEPCOM is supported by the EUs Health
programme (2008-2013); the European fund for
protecting and impoving human health. The views
expressed are purely the authors own and do not
reflect the views of the European Commission.

Copyright 2014 HEPCOM, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
info@hepcom.eu

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HEPCOM was created by 21 European Partners

Coordinator Dutch Institute for Healthcare Improvement CBO (NL)

Aarhus University (DK)

National University of Ireland (IE)

Bergen University College (NO)

P.A.U. Education (ES)

Business Solutions Europa (BE)

South Denmark European Office (DK)

Croatian National Institute of Public Health (HR)

Steno Diabetes Center (DK)

Institouto Ygeias tou Paidiou (EL)

Stichting euPrevent EMR (NL)

Istituto Superiore di Sanit (IT)

Universit Blaise Pascal Clermont-Ferrand (FR)

Leuphana Universitt Lneburg (DE)

University of Brighton (UK)

Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft GmbH (AT)

University College Syddenmark (DK)

Maastricht University (NL)

University of Eastern Finland (FI)

Mykolas Romeris University (LT)

Universidade do Minho (PT)