2020 EPOCH EMCRs Webinars Watch the webinar recordings here to learn more about recent works around early prevention of childhood obesity from EPOCH CRE EMCRs. EPOCH EMCRs Webinars
17 December 2020 – moving the field forward through collaboration
27 November 2020 - Promoting breastfeeding among culturally diverse families in Australia EPOCH CRE Annual Meeting 2020 
The 2020 EPOCH CRE annual meeting was held on 3-4 December via Zoom, bringing together early childhood obesity prevention researchers from around Australia. In what was going to be the final year of the CRE funding (now extended to late 2021), the CRE is on track to complete its planned research activities. Read more for highlights of the CRE annual meeting. Professor Louise Baur, director of EPOCH CRE, opened the meeting with a touching acknowledgement of the country and welcomed around 30 collaborators in Australia and New Zealand, spanning four different time zones! All Streams are in the final phases of their work showing an impressive amount of research outputs. The Stream 1 team published the world’s-first prospective meta-analysis on early childhood obesity prevention showing a modest but meaningful reduction in BMI-z score. Members of the team were awarded an NHMRC Ideas Grant in 2020 for the TOPCHILD project to unpack how the interventions work and for whom, which will enable interventions to be tailored to specific population groups. Stream 2 is conducting its final study to validate several rapid tools to measure obesity related aspects of dietary, movement and sleep, in infants, toddlers and preschool-aged children for policy and practice purposes. The team plans to host information sessions for interested researchers, policymakers and practitioners, to facilitate the use and adoption of the tools. Stream 3 presented findings on the cost effectiveness of several early childhood obesity prevention interventions and the impact of age and socioeconomic positions on weight and health-related quality of life. The findings provide an important economic argument for the early prevention of childhood obesity and highlighted the urgent need for more trials to include cost evaluation data. Stream 4 is forging ahead with work to scaling up Healthy Beginnings (NSW) and INFANT (VIC) and embedding these programs into routine health services. Both programs have received further funding from NHMRC and MRFF grant schemes to support the scaling up of the programs within their respective states. They shared important learnings for scaling up including alignment of the program with the core business of practitioners, adequate structural support and strategies to enhance parental engagement in the program. A further finding is that childhood obesity prevention policies are relatively invisible but there is strong public support for a broad population approach to prevent obesity. Knowledge translation and dissemination will be a strong focus for EPOCH CRE in 2021 with several state and national events being planned. The annual meeting ended on a high note with Professor Karen Campbell, previous co-director of EPOCH CRE, reflecting on how the CRE began and what it has been able to accomplish.
COVID-19 affected events
All conference presentations by our members have been cancelled, postponed or delivered remotely due to COVID-19. The following is a list of the presentation details and contact person of the first author. When the presentations or poster become available, they will be uploaded here. Limin Buchanan Limin.buchanan@health.nsw.gov.au ‘Associations of dietary behaviour and screen time of pregnant women with their childbirth weight: findings from a CHAT study in Australia’, accepted for oral presentation at 19th Annual Meeting of International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA). Auckland, New Zealand, July 17-20 2020. Andrea Fuller a5.fuller@qut.edu.au ‘A peer-led intervention targeting obesity-related behaviours and delivered to parents at community-based playgroups is both feasible and acceptable’, accepted for poster presentation at 19th Annual Meeting of International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA). Auckland, New Zealand, July 17-20 2020. The aim of the pilot trial was to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a peer-led obesity-prevention intervention delivered to parents of young children attending community playgroups. The intervention was both feasible and acceptable. The peer-led “healthy conversations” delivery model, and the leveraging of existing social support networks were important and novel aspects of the intervention Widjane Goncalves widjane.ferreiragoncalves@hdr.qut.edu.au ‘Psychometric properties of an instrument designed to measure parenting practices and children’s obesity-related behaviours from Brazil’, accepted for poster presentation at 19th Annual Meeting of International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA). Auckland, New Zealand, July 17-20 2020. ‘Parental influences on physical activity and screen time among preschool children from rural Brazil’, accepted for poster presentation at 19th Annual Meeting of International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA). Auckland, New Zealand, July 17-20 2020. Sarah Marshall sarah.marshall@sydney.edu.au ‘Supporting migrant mothers with infant feeding and healthy growth: qualitative evaluation of the culturally adapted Healthy Beginnings program’, accepted for oral presentation at 19th Annual Meeting of International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA). Auckland, New Zealand, July 17-20 2020. Konsita Kuswara k.kuswara@deakin.edu.au ‘‘It makes me feel motherly’ – Breastfeeding and motherhood identity’, accepted for poster presentation at the World Public Health Nutrition Congress. Brisbane, Australia, March 31 – April 3 2020. The context of early formula introduction among Chinese Australian mothers have not been previously examined. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis approach, this study compared the early feeding experiences of first time Chinese Australian mothers who breastfed exclusively for four months to those who introduced formula in the first week of birth. The findings provide insights into how Chinese Australian mothers can be supported to breastfeed exclusively. 2019 June 27 and 28, 2019: EPOCH CRE Annual Meeting Deakin Downton – Tower 2, level 12/727 Collins St, Melbourne In the third year of the CRE, the annual meeting held in Melbourne celebrated the many successes accomplished to date and planning to translate stream outputs for policy and practice at the end of CRE. Some of the highlights include: Stream 1 - Near publication of the main outcomes at two years of the prospective meta-analysis of the early childhood obesity prevention trials in Australia and New Zealand (EPOCH collaboration).
- EPOCH CRE is a major repository for early childhood obesity prevention trials worldwide and the list is rapidly expanding. Stream 1 is leading the next phase of research involving these trials.
Stream 2 - Methodological expertise in best practice tool development.
Stream 3 - Developed tools for evaluating cost effectiveness and cost utility of early childhood obesity prevention initiatives
- Established new national and international collaborations to advance the economic evaluation of childhood obesity prevention strategies.
Stream 4 - Two NHMRC partnership grants funded to scale up existing early childhood obesity prevention programs in VIC and NSW.
- Understanding of policy leverage points for obesity prevention in early life.
Others - Professor Marj Moodie (Stream 3 chief investigator) has been involved in several CREs and she shared her learnings on what makes an effective CRE.
- 16 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers presented their work.
- Professor Sarah McNaughton led a workshop on grant writing.
The Obesity Collective Members of the CRE attended the launch of the Obesity Collective on 31 July 2018 held at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre.
The Collective is a group of committed individuals and organisations (NGOs, Academics, entrepreneurs, private sectors, community leaders, Government, healthcare providers etc.) who are working as a collective to help drive more action on obesity in Australia.
The Collective Plan for Action on Obesity aims to raise awareness, change the narrative from a focus on personal responsibility to collective responsibility, map activity and gaps across the system, provide a source of truth on the current evidence, create a platform to better collaborate and support new players in society to contribute.
For further information, please contact: https://obesityaustralia.squarespace.com/
Conferences Members of the CRE will be attending the 23rd IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion, 7 - 11 April 2019, Rotorua, Aotearoa New Zealand. Members of the CRE will be attending the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Annual meeting from 4-7 June 2019, Prague, Czech Republic. 2018 May 10 and May 11, 2018 - Annual Meeting and Showcase Event: hosted by EPOCH CRE and NSW Health Topic: Research Policy and Practice coming together to prevent overweight and obesity among children 0-5 years Our second annual meeting was held at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney on May 10-11. It was a great success and over 40 collaborators including postdoctoral fellows and PhD students, attended. There were workshops on the Behaviour Change Wheel and how it can apply to our work, Statistical Challenges and one of the many highlights was the session on Effective Communication and Social Media Lessons given by Medical Entomologist and Communications Expert Cameron Webb. There were opportunities for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to present their work and research plans and get valuable feedback from experts. We also held a joint showcase “Research, policy and practice coming together to prevent overweight and obesity among children 0-5 years” which was jointly presented with staff from the New South Wales Ministry of Health. 
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