GUSTO SRP

Project Title: GUSTO SRP Partnership: Multi-component behaviour determinants of health in children

This GUSTO SRP partnership proposal addresses the diverse determinants of physical inactivity, outdoor exercise, and unhealthy dietary behaviours in GUSTO children.

This will be achieved by comprehensively investigating and identifying the causes for unhealthy lifestyle behaviours among the children and adding environmental assessments, and mixed-methods approaches to existing health behavioral data collected in the GUSTO studies.

There are 3 work packages to this proposal.

Work Package 1

The first involves the mapping of variation in the food, physical activity and outdoor-related built environment across Singapore using geographical information systems (GIS) in the children of the GUSTO cohorts.

Work Package 2

The second involves the use of qualitative methods to investigate children’s and caregivers’ perspectives of the lifestyle factors that may contribute to obesity risk in older children in Singapore and the contextual factors (i.e. home and school environment, cultural and social norms) in which these lifestyle behaviors occur.

Work Package 3

The third is the development of a web-based assessment tool to evaluate lifestyle behaviors of young adolescents. The plan is to conduct this among 240 schoolchildren, aged 9–12 years old, whom will be recruited from 4 local primary schools.  From this work, we plan to provide personalized feedback to participants and parents and group level feedback to schools/MOE/HPB. We will also be validating the tool using using meal observations (by researchers), use of accelerometers and smartwatch-based fitness tracker (FitSight). This tool will be used by the GUSTO children when they turn 9 or 10 years of age.

Publications

  • Tan SYX, Chia A, Tai BC, Natarajan P, Goh CMJL, Shek LP, Saw SM, Chong MF, Müller-Riemenschneider F. A Web-Based, Time-Use App To Assess Children’s Movement Behaviors: Validation Study of My E-Diary for Activities and Lifestyle (MEDAL). JMIR Pediatr Parent. 2022 Jun 24;5(2):e33312. doi: 10.2196/33312.
  • Chia A, Descarpentrie A, Cheong RN, Toh JY, Natarajan P, Sugianto R, Cai S, Saldanha-Gomes C, Dargent-Molina P, de Lauzon-Guillain B, Plancoulaine S, Lança C, Saw SM, Godfrey KM, Shek LP, Tan KH, Charles MA, Chong YS, Heude B, Eriksson JG, Müller-Riemenschneider F, Lioret S, Chong MF, Bernard JY. Family-focused contextual factors associated with lifestyle patterns in young children from two mother-offspring cohorts: GUSTO and EDEN. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2022 Mar 15;19(1):26. doi: 10.1186/s12966-022-01266-4.
  • Chan MJ, Tay GWN, Kembhavi G, Lim J, Rebello SA, Ng H, Lin C, Wang MC, Müller-Riemenschneider F, Chong MF. Understanding children’s perspectives of the influences on their dietary behaviours. Public Health Nutr. 2022 Feb 21;25(8):1-11. doi: 10.1017/S1368980022000404.
  • Tay GWN, Chan MJ, Kembhavi G, Lim J, Rebello SA, Ng H, Lin C, Shek LP, Lança C, Müller-Riemenschneider F, Chong MF. Children’s perceptions of factors influencing their physical activity: a focus group study on primary school children. Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being. 2021 Dec;16(1):1980279. doi: 10.1080/17482631.2021.1980279.
  • Tan SYX, Chia A, Sugianto R, Tong HE, Ang IYH, Shek LP, Saw SM, Müller-Riemenschneider F, Chong MF. Validation of a Web-Based, Time-Use Application to Assess Children’s School Meal Intakes: My E-Diary for Activities and Lifestyle (MEDAL). Nutrients. 2021 Oct 26;13(11):3790. doi: 10.3390/nu13113790. PMID: 34836046; PMCID: PMC8624734.

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Last updated May 16, 2023