The Co-Create project aims to reduce obesity prevalence among adolescents in Europe through co-created policies that promote healthier food and physical activity environments. It involves collaboration with youth to identify actions and develop sustainable prevention policies while monitoring the impacts of existing strategies. The project integrates various stakeholders, including academics and policymakers, to create a comprehensive approach to tackling childhood obesity.

1. Confronting obesity: Co-creating
policy with youth (CO-CREATE)
CO-CREATE kick-off meeting
Knut-Inge Klepp, Coordinator
Oslo, June 27, 2018
This project has received funding from the European
Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under grant agreement No 774210

2. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Childhood obesity on the agenda

3. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Overweight and obesity by
mother’s education
3
11,8
14,3 14,3
2
4,5 5,1
0
5
10
15
20
25
høy utdanning mellomutdanning lav utdanning
Andel(%)
fedme (%)
overvekt (%)
18%
14%
Biehl, A, Hovengen, R, Groholt, EK, Hjelmesaeth, J, Strand, BH et al. Adiposity among children in Norway by urbanity and
maternal education: a nationally representative study. BMC Public Health 2013; 13: 842.
*
19%

4. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
CO-CREATE: impacting the context
The overall aim of CO-CREATE is to
reduce the prevalence of obesity among
adolescents in Europe through policy
actions in promotion of a healthier food
and physical activity environment
Lobstein et.al, Obesity reviews (2004) 5 (Suppl. 1), 4–85

5. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
System perspective – obesity system maps
Allender S, Owen B, Kuhlberg J, Lowe J, Nagorcka-Smith P, et al. (2015) A Community Based Systems Diagram of Obesity Causes. PLOS ONE 10(7): e0129683.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129683

6. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance
Initiative (COSI)
COSI involves taking standardized weight and
height measurements from over 300 000 6-9-
year-old children across the WHO European
Region, providing nationally representative data
for participating countries, and large region-
wide data set for analysis of the determinants of
childhood overweight and obesity
Over 40 member states in Europe will
participate in the 5th round of COSI during the
2018–2019 school year
Figure: Prevalence of overweight (including obesity) and
obesity (WHO definition) in boys and girls aged 6-9 years,
by age and country

7. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
WHO: Health Behaviour in School Children
Utilizing existing data and investigating variation across
Europe
WHO Regional Office for Europe (2016). Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study: international report from the 2013/2014 survey. WHO, Copenhagen.

8. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Monitoring policies
World Cancer Research Fund International
NOURISHING:
policy framework to promote healthy
diets & reduce obesity

9. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Youth involvement
In COCREATE, adolescents are not merely
the object of an intervention designed by
researchers, but are themselves agents for
change, identifying required actions and
collaborating to help achieve them

10. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
State of the art
Systematic review of existing policy and intervention research

11. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
The project objectives are:
To develop methodology for monitoring and benchmarking relevant policies
To establish the state-of-the-art in existing evidence regarding effective policies and policy measures; investigate
changes in overweight, obesity rates and related behaviors across countries over time; study such changes in relation to
relevant European and national policies; to explore associations between policies and prevalence according to socio-
economic background
To develop a set of visual system maps of policy-dependent multi-level drivers of adolescent obesity across the
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Africa and the United Kingdom
To collaborate with adolescents aged 13-18 and establish sustainable Youth Alliances for Overweight Prevention
Policies; develop novel policy options that will contribute to upstream overweight prevention and reducing inequalities
in overweight/obesity
To establish and evaluate policy dialogue forums between public and private sector stakeholders
To develop prototype outcomes, policies and solutions that policy makers and businesses can respond to, based on
engagement with, and feedback from youth
To use system dynamics modelling to assess and predict the potential impacts of selected evidence-based and co-
created policy options, including the socioeconomic distribution of any impact
To communicate and disseminate purpose, progress, toolkits and other deliverables of CO-CREATE

12. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Expected impacts
New insight into childhood obesity levels in
relation to implementation of policies
Mapping out the obesity system
Modelling policy responses in the obesity
system
Liaise with youth themselves
Open access, easy to use, policy monitoring
tools
Model for dialogue forums including
stakeholders from various levels of society

13. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Consortium
14 partners from 10 countries across
the world
Multi-actor
Cross disciplinary
Coordinated by the Norwegian
Institute of Public Health (NIPH) by
Prof. Knut-Inge Klepp
This project has received funding from the
European Union's Horizon 2020 research and
innovation programme under grant agreement
No 774210

14. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Organization of the work

15. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Obesity system mapping
Identify the key driving factors of obesity in
adolescents in collaboration with academic experts,
policy makers and the adolescents themselves
Develop conceptual maps from five mapping
sites across Europe and in South Africa
Synthesizing findings with current state of data,
evidence and policies, and create a conceptual
model
Refine and develop findings to provide input
into the development of a systems dynamics
model

16. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Youth Alliances for overweight prevention
policies
Establish Youth Alliances for Overweight Prevention
Policies across Europe
Promote and support adolescent participation in
policy formulation processes
Knowledge exchange and learning between the
adolescents and the scientific community
Policy development informed by the adolescents
themselves
Identify, with adolescents, sustainable and
effective overweight prevention policies and
effective ways of including adolescents in the
development of policies targeting their group

17. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Dialogue forum with representatives from policy
and business
Establish and evaluate policy dialogue forums with
adolescents and important stakeholders that define and
influence policies related to overweight and obesity
prevention
Empowerment of adolescents in dialogue about
their health and welfare
Analysis of the roles and responsibility of each
stakeholder group in tackling overweight and
obesity prevention
Follow up actionable outcomes of the dialogue
forums
Develop recommendations for how to establish
multi-actor dialogue forums

18. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Evaluation of co-created policy interventions and
methodology
Systems dynamics modelling to assess and
predict impacts of selected evidence based and
co-created policy options for prevention of
overweight and obesity across the social
gradient
Develop infrastructure for the implementation
and evaluation of CO-CREATE outputs

19. Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth
Communication and dissemination of results
Main web site hosted by Norwegian Institute of Pubic Health:
www.co-create.eu
CO-CREATE project pages on all partners’ sites
WCRFI web site for database on nutrition and physical activity policies
WOF youth-facing web site for information/interaction
Extensive use of social media and presentations at European level
conferences such as EUPHA, ECO, ISBNPA, EAT Forum
Newsletters (i.e. major events, tools and targeted audience)
Established collaboration with the Science & Technology in childhood
Obesity Policy (STOP) project and with the Joint Programming Initiative
on Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life: Policy Evaluation Network (PEN)

20. The CO-CREATE project has received funding from the European Union’s
Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 774210.
The products of the research are the responsibility of the authors: the European
Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of them.
www.co-create.eu