STRATEGIC LANDMARKS IN OBESITY PREVENTION IN ROMANIAN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

Given that in Romania obesity has also become a recognized public health problem and still there is not a public health policy on the broader “socio-ecological†model, we thought it useful to carry out three surveys using the Delphi method with the purpose of identifying and building a hierarchy for the optimum national intervention strategies to prevent obesity in Romanian children and adolescents. Of the 300 experts invited to join the Delphi surveys, 76 completed the two rounds of questions (25.33% response). The final number of surveys participants included: 26 school doctors (Delphi I); 25 interdisciplinary experts (DELPHI II); 25 parents (DELPHI III). The outcomes of our study were compared with those of the European project PorGrow. Responses were classified by the principle of ranks, using the average weighted ranks given of each participant in the survey for each question. For analyzing the degree of concordance between the three views expressed, Kendall's nonparametric test of rank correlation coefficient was calculated. This study shows a consensual opinion regarding the necessity of applying not just a few separate measures, but a whole package of well coordinated, well integrated measures, that are able to complete one another and to adapt to the Romanian social-economic and cultural environment in order to reverse the progressive tendency of the obesity epidemic on children and teenagers.