A Syracuse University professor recently finished a five-year study of behaviors that lead to obesity, finding that there could be a common link that spans across the globe.

Childhood obesity has more than doubled within the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Tiago Barreira, an assistant professor in SU’s School of Education, participated in a recent global study — The International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment — hoping to better understand what contributes to childhood obesity.

“The primary aim of ISCOLE was to determine the relationships between lifestyle behaviors and obesity in a multi-national study of children,” Barreira said.

The study was conducted primarily by monitoring the physical activity of children through the use of accelerators, which monitor movement, and by sending surveys out to children, Barreira said. Researchers also monitored the sleep patterns of the children involved in the study.

ISCOLE is unlike other childhood obesity studies because it monitored subjects beyond North America and Europe, Barreira said.

“ISCOLE was the first children obesity study that was global in nature that included countries from a variety of human developing index and used the exact same methodology and equipment across all countries,” Barreira said.

The use of the same methodology can generate more consistent and accurate results, according to the study.

Barreira was involved with the study since the original planning phase in 2010. He was a member of the protocol development and training team and the accelerometer analysis team. Additionally, he developed training materials and the manual of procedures for the accelerometry used in all 12 countries involved in the study. 

One of the study’s main findings was that lower amounts of sleep and higher amounts of sedentary behavior were associated with higher BMIs. Children who did 55 or more minutes a day of moderate to vigorous exercise were less likely to be obese, according to the study.

“Physical activity was a really powerful predictor of weight,” said Timothy Church, one of the primary investigators in the study. “We knew physical activity would be important, but I think it was almost more important than we thought it was going to be.”

Much of the physical activity recorded in the study was not necessarily from exercise, but from the day-to-day lives of the children, Church said.

The amount of physical activity varied based upon different cultures and geographical areas. For example, Church said children in certain areas exerted a lot of physical activity walking to and from school each day. But in areas like Finland, researchers found a lower amount of physical activity due to the cold weather.

One of the study’s most unexpected findings came after monitoring a group of children’s sleeping patterns in Latin America, Church said. Researchers initially couldn’t understand why so many children were waking up at 4 a.m., but it turned out that they were waking up to milk their cows.

While similar studies have been conducted before, they have largely been limited to countries in Europe, Church said. ISCOLE studied children in nine diverse regions, including Africa, the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia, he added.

Barreira said: “It was a unique learning and networking opportunity which has helped my development as a global-minded person and scientist.”

Published on February 10, 2016 at 10:47 pm

Contact Nicole: nvalinot@syr.edu