JANPA aimed to contribute to halting the rise of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents by 2020. JANPA enabled the 26 participating countries to share and discuss the practices they implement to combat obesity and overweight, in order to identify the most effective levers for action.
Among their other actions, JANPA facilitated the sharing of specific tools to promote the improvement of the nutritional quality of foods and the consumer information at national level.
The information provided below are coming from the Joint Action's dedicated pages [1, 2].
JANPA was coordinated by ANSES, France.
- WP5: “Monitoring nutritional information and promoting the reformulation of foods”, led by ANSES with the participation of INRA and 10 other European partners representing eight countries, recognised the need to improve nutritional information in order to contribute to the food purchasing decisions of citizens and acquire knowledge on the variability of nutrient levels in food. The French OQALI Imodel was tested in Romania and Austria, with two categories of products widely consumed by children: breakfast cereals and non-alcoholic beverages. The two pilot studies undertaken as part of JANPA demonstrated that OQALI is an effective and inexpensive tool for collecting information to compare nutritional situations within and between countries. Based on this knowledge, common objectives can be defined for the reformulation of foods and their monitoring by public institutions;
- in the context of WP4: “Economic rationale for tackling childhood obesity” led by Ireland, the future costs of childhood obesity were estimated at country level, for a few countries, using a model taking into account health and societal costs related to premature mortality and loss of productivity. These estimates may prove essential to national advocacy efforts in favour of nutritional policies when governmental trade-offs have to be made;
- the work of WP6: “Healthy environments by integrated approaches”, led by Hungary, and of WP7: “Early interventions”, led by Finland, enabled criteria to be defined for selecting best practices for early interventions and actions at school, starting in preschools. These best practices were selected by the participating countries based on strict criteria. An online toolbox was created on the basis of their descriptions and qualitative analyses. Actions can be selected using search criteria such as country, area of intervention, intervention type, budget, etc.(anpa-toolbox.eu/). Recommendations for developing, implementing, sustaining and facilitating the transferability of a best practice were also formulated. The best practices identified through JANPA were also included in the “Best Practice” portal of the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) of the European Commission.
JANPA received funding from the European Union's Health Programme (2014-2020)
JANPA in FABLE
FABLE is hosting the data collected as part of JANPA. This includes packaged >500 breakfast cereals and ~900 soft drinks from Austria and Romania.