Preventing Childhood Obesity - Evidence Policy and Practice.pdf

Chapter 28
Box 28.1 The EPODE program
EPODE ( ‘ Ensemble pr é venons l ’ ob é sit é des enfants:
Together, let ’ s prevent childhood obesity ’ ) is an innovative
program, developed in France and launched in
2004 to help prevent obesity in children. In 2010,
about 200 French towns were involved in EPODE
and the program is now being run out in Belgium,
Spain, South Australia and Canada (Qu é bec). The
original 10 towns in the pilot program have now
fulfilled their original commitment for five years and
have all reaffirmed their commitment for another
five years, indicating the strong sustainability of the
concept.
Box 28.2 Engaging the champions
A key aspect of EPODE is its involvement of local
authorities through the local mayors. In France, these
local authorities have jurisdiction over kindergartens
and primary schools, covering the primary target of
children aged 3 – 12 years. Mayors are invited to submit
an application to be an EPODE community; this
involves signing a charter promising to employ a full -
time project manager for the program, organize specific
activities each month in the city, participate in
national meetings of project managers and commit at
least 1 euro per capita per annum for five years
(although many authorities commit much more than
this).
subsidies for healthy foods or products, regulating
advertising to children, 8 making unhealthy foods less
visible, more expensive and harder to access. 9
It is appropriate to include advocacy elements in a
social marketing strategy. Indeed, some would say that
social marketers should consider environmental
change first 10 and we should only attempt to persuade
individuals to change their behavior when all possible
environmental changes have been put in place that
will make it easier for them to change. Targeting local
champions is also a key social marketing strategy
because they can significantly influence opinions and
mobilize resources (Box 28.2 ).
Other chapters in this book go into more detail on
strategies to change the environment so the rest of this
chapter will focus on the more conventional, down-
stream social marketing activities involved when
trying to persuade individuals to change their behavior.
Some well - accepted marketing principles are discussed
later and shown how they were used in the
EPODE context: “ getting the right message ” and
“ getting the message right ” for different target markets;
and the marketing mix. But first, we identify a number
of fundamental communication principles to be
considered when designing a social marketing
campaign:
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• The receiver is an active processor of incoming
information: A message will be received differently
by different people; pre - existing beliefs, attitudes,
experiences and knowledge affect the way an individual
attends to, interprets and accepts a message.
• Different target audiences may respond to different
messages differently: Target audiences must be
segmented by beliefs and attitudes before the development
of targeted messages.
• Formative research, including message pre - testing
is essential: Formative research (focus groups/
interviews) is conducted with the target audience to
understand their different beliefs and attitudes.
Messages are then pre - tested with the target audience
to ensure understanding, and with secondary
audiences, to ensure there are no unintended negative
effects.
• A theoretical framework increases the likelihood
of success: Campaigns guided by theoretical frameworks
are more likely to be successful than those
that are not. Some of the important models of attitude
and behavior change include the Health Belief
Model, Protection Motivation Theory, Theory of
Reasoned Action and the Theory of Trying (for a
summary, see Andreasen). 3
• Comprehensive, coordinated interventions are
most successful: Successful campaigns are comprehensive
and coordinated with other environmental
and on - the - ground strategies to ensure
attitudinal and behavioral success.
• Multiple delivery channels and multiple sources
increase the likelihood of success: Communication
campaigns involving a number of message delivery
channels and more than one source appear to be
more successful than those that do not. 12
• Campaigns must be sustained to be effective:
Communication campaigns must be sustained over
time to achieve and maintain success.
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