Participating institutions

Institute of Nutrition for Central America and Panama (INCAP, Guatemala

Emory University, USA

Principal Researchers

Maria Fernanda Kroker-Lobos, PhD

Manuel Ramirez-Zea, PhD

Aryeh Stein, PhD

Funding agency

NIH Fogarty

General objective

The purpose of the study is to explore whether environmental factors contribute to childhood obesity at the communities of the INCAP longitudinal study through:

Measuring food environment components as food advertising, density of food places and offer of food in and outside of schools.

Explore the relation between the density of food places around the school and the body weight of school age children, through the assessment of the child´s diet, taking into account important sociodemographic variables and the level of physical activity.

Methodology

We will carry this transversal study at four villages of the Department of El Progreso: Conacaste, Espiritu Santo, San Juan y Santo Domingo, located at the municipality of Sanarate.

Currently, each village has two elementary schools (n=8 schools) with an average of 200 students each one. At each school, we will recruit 50 children from first to sixth grade, to obtain 400 school age children. The following measures will be obtained:

Individual measures:

a.     Sociodemographic information

b.    Dietetic survey addressed to children.

c.     Anthropometry.

d.    Food frequency

 Food Environment Measures at the school and community level

a.     Advertising within and outside the schools.

b.    Density of food places outside schools.

c.     Food availability within and outside schools.