Iran-ECHO

Principle investigator: Roya Kelishadi

Co-investigators: Roya Kelishadi, Zahra Abdollahi, Ali-Akbar Sayyari, Beheshteh Olang, Hassan Ziaodini, Motahar Heidari_Beni, Hossein Fallah, Zahra Abasalti, Fereshteh Fozouni, Sakineh Jafari, Farhad Lashkarlouki, Mahnoush Sahebdel, Arash Siadati, Hamideh Aslani

The IRAN-Ending Childhood Obesity (IRAN‑ECHO) program, is designed and being implemented in the framework of the World Health Organization ECHO (WHO- ECHO) program which was developed as a comprehensive and integrated package of recommendations to address childhood obesity. IRAN‑ECHO is implementing multicomponent interventions by considering life course dimensions. The program has two parts of “population approach” and “individual approach”. The population approach considers different periods in life, including prenatal, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, as well as family and society. Meanwhile, the individual approach targets those children or adolescents with overweight or obesity and is conducted as a referral system that is now integrated in the current national health system.

The IRAN‑ECHO program is expected to be initiated in other provinces of the country as well in  near future. Part of this program that was conducted as a quasi‑experimental survey comprised 7149 students and showed that a high percentage of students had acceptable knowledge about adverse health effects of overweight and obesity. However, the knowledge about the low nutritional value of unhealthy snacks such as potato chips, puffs, industrial juices, and carbonated drinks was not appropriate. Many participants had the undesirable attitude of skipping one of the main meals when attempting to lose weight. Conclusions: The IRAN‑ECHO program is presenting the feasibility of conducting the WHO‑ECHO recommendations in Iran. The scope of potential policy recommendations to decrease childhood obesity is extensive and includes various elements. This program considers multisectoral interventions through population and individual approaches. The multicomponent interventions of this program address the obesogenic environment by considering the life course dimensions. It is expected that, by its life course interventions, it helps in the primordial and primary prevention of non-communicable diseases.