Physical activity monitoring in obese people in the real life environment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Obesity is a major problem especially in western countries and several studies underline the importance of physical activity to enhance diet. Currently there is increasing interest in instruments for monitoring daily physical activity. The purpose of this pilot study was to appraise the qualitative and quantitative differences in physical activities and gait analysis parameters in control and obese subjects by means of an innovative tool for the monitoring of physical activity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Twenty-six obese patients, 16 women and 10 men, aged 22 to 69 years with Body Mass Index (BMI) between 30 and 51.4 kg/m², were compared with 15 control subjects, 4 men and 11 women, aged 24 to 69 with BMI between 18 and 25 kg/m²during daily physical activities. The IDEEA device (Minisun, Fresno, CA), based on a wearable system of biaxial accelerometers and able to continuously record the physical activities and energy expenditure of a subject in time was used. Time spent in different physical activities such as standing, sitting, walking, lying, reclining, stepping, energy expenditure and gait parameters (velocity, stance duration, etc) were measured during a 24-hours period.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A trend toward a reduced number of steps was present, associated to reduced speed, reduced cadence and reduced rate of single and double limb support (SLS/DLS). Moreover, obese people spent significant less time stepping, less time lying and more time in a sitting or reclined position during the night. The energy expenditure during a 24-hours period was higher in the obese compared to controls.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The study provided objective parameters to differentiate the daily motor activity of obese subjects with respect to controls, even a larger population is required to confirm these findings. The device used can be of support in programming educational activities for life style modification in obese people as well as for monitoring the results of various kinds of intervention in these patients concerning weight and physical performance.</p

Overweight in childhood and adolescence

About 40% of children with weight troubles (as well as 60% of adolescents in the same conditions) will remain obese during their adult life. With this in mind, it is clear enough that many cases of adulthood’s obesity found their roots in paediatric age. Belonging to a lineage where obesity runs in the family appears as an important risk factor in the development of childhood obesity, but the relationship between parental and offspring obesity is not limited to genetic factors. Actually, environment can play a major role in both generations. The concept of environment has widened enough, in the recent years, and scientists look at it now as the “envirome”, the total complement of environmental characteristics, conditions, and processes required for life form viability and successful adaptation. Genome and environment coexist, and genomic expression can be modified by environment, leading to the idea that genome and envirome can interact through epigenetic modifications, which are active during the individual life-span, but are suspected to have an inter-generational influence as well. Should epigenomics’ hypothesis be confirmed as reliable, then the whole weighing condition, development, and future of an individual would be really decided during the very first periods of his/her life. According to the hypothesis, epigenetic changes start during the gestational period, and – quite possibly – even before it. We are still trying to understand which external environmental factors can shape the genomic expression, and what impact each factor can have

Validation of the Italian Yale Food Addiction Scale in postgraduate university students

This study was aimed to examine the structural and construct validity of the Italian version of the Yale Food Addiction Scale in a multisite sample of postgraduate students