Community-based prevention of obesity in children

Besides individual determinants, obesity is also caused by obesogenic environmental conditions. Thus, prevention of obesity in children should aim at creating health-promoting environments. This is especially important for children of socially disadvantaged families and communities who are hardly reached and often profit less by behavior-oriented interventions. The main question is which environmental conditions should be changed and how in order to be accepted and sustainable? According to our experiences from the project "Grunau moves" (Grunau bewegt sich), the consideration of environmental and social conditions in the intervention field as well as the inclusion of the professional expertise of local agents and the lifeworld perspective (subjective meanings and realities) of families and children are crucial. Based on the fact that the understanding and weighting of health varies between individuals, the starting points for interventions and environmental change must be sought according to the interests and resources of the local community. Combining a medical and social work perspective and focusing on the community work approach can help to link and bundle different perspectives and interests in order to create appropriate and context-specific health-promoting environments.