The Specific Characteristics of Childhood Obesity and the Effective Strategies to Combat Childhood Obesity in Hong Kong: A Short Review

Childhood obesity is a serious public health problem all around the world. The problem also currently exists in Hong Kong. Unhealthy lifestyle behavior may be one of key factors contributing to childhood obesity. The review revealed the specific characteristics of childhood obesity and the effective strategies in prevention of childhood obesity in Hong Kong context. Hong Kong is a metropolitan city which is interwoven eastern and western culture. The historical reasons and the complex political issues lead to overcrowded of people living in a small place. The environmental factors and the lifestyle pattern are the crucial causes contributing to childhood obesity. Parents have significant influence in shaping lifestyle behavior of children. While Chinese culture, informal childcare and more energy-dense food consumptions are the specific factors affecting children in lifestyle behavior as shown in the previous studies. The finding of the present review paper is expected to realize root causes of the prevalence of childhood obesity. On the other hand, many studies regarding to the treatment of childhood obesity were also reviewed. It was found that fewer studies were conducted to provide the combined intervention to combat childhood obesity. Generally, parental education was not the focus of childhood obesity intervention programs and parent-oriented approach was not commonly adopted in these programs. While limited childhood obesity intervention programs have been conducted in Hong Kong, it is recommended to conduct an appropriate program for children specifically in Hong Kong context. The design of preventive strategies should take into consideration of these specific characteristics in Hong Kong to reverse the increased prevalence of childhood obesity

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead