European Initiatives: the EU platform

The EU Platform on Diet, Physical Activity and Health was launched in March 2005 to “provide a common forum for all interested actors at European level where: (a) they can explain their plans to contribute concretely to the pursuit of healthy nutrition, physical activity and the fight against obesity, and where those plans can be discussed; (b) outcomes and experience from actors’ performance can be reported and reviewed, so that over time better evidence is assembled of what works, and Best Practice more clearly defined.” 1

The background to the Platform is interesting and there is a dedicated site on the DG SANCO website which describes this and sets out how the Platform has developed over its lifetime 2. This is also the place to go if you are interested in the membership (or indeed becoming a member) or in understanding the kinds of activities that Platform members undertake and what are the outputs from this innovative process. However, after two and a half years it is important to start thinking beyond the basic details of how the Platform operates and to start considering how you can measure its achievements. Consequently there is a need to focus on monitoring of activities related to diet, physical activity and health as this will, hopefully, provide some of the answers to the questions about what we can do to improve our lifestyles.

From the outset it was recognised that the members of the Platform would need to monitor their achievements if they were to demonstrate their impact to others and to learn from their own practices. This was a challenging task, however, and not all Platform members were equally skilled in this area. Consequently a Platform Monitoring Working Group, which was chaired by the European Commission and comprised members of the Platform, was set up in March 2005 and produced a “Monitoring Framework” and a “First Monitoring Progress Report” in 2006. 3 Subsequently a second Monitoring Progress Report was produced for the second anniversary of the Platform (March 2007). 4 This Report presented the achievements of the EU Platform on Diet, Physical Activity and Health in 2006, but also examined how successfully the Platform’s members had been in monitoring their progress.

The report was a summary of the achievements of 121 commitments that had been made by Platform members - covering areas such as education, physical activity, food labelling, food reformulation and advertising and marketing. The commitments varied significantly in their size and scope and had been made by a variety of different actors – e.g. consumer and health organisations, the food industry and Governments. Reporting on what these commitments had achieved was a difficult task and, in itself, the exercise of producing the report identified some of the issues that defined effective monitoring. These being; the need to be specific when setting objectives and reporting on actions, the need to focus on relevant information when monitoring, the need to devise appropriate methods of measuring results, the need to communicate information clearly, the need to state the Platform’s contribution to a commitment, and the need to dedicate sufficient resources to allow effective monitoring.

The report also included an exercise by which the quality of the monitoring activities was assessed. The results indicated that the average (mean) quality score for the commitments was 2.88 (out of a maximum of 5), with a crude interpretation of this score suggesting that, on average, the monitoring forms fall just short of an “adequate” standard. These results suggesting that a significant number of monitoring forms were not entirely adequate and that some Platform members are struggling with the monitoring of their commitments.

The experiences in the Platform show the difficulty of monitoring activities aimed at reducing obesity – be this for children or adults. However, it is essential that effective monitoring is put in place by all those involved in such activities as without this it will be difficult, if not impossible, to understand what works and what does not work. In relation to the Platform it is hoped that the Monitoring reports and guidance will act as a catalyst to ensure that there is an overall improvement which can be reflected in any future report on the achievements of the Platform. However, the experiences in the Platform are worth sharing with a wider audience as they are just as relevant for any activity or policy aimed at reducing obesity.

References:

1 : EU Platform on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, ‘Diet, Physical Activity and Health –
A European Platform for Action’, March 15 2005. http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/nutrition/platform/do
cs/platform_charter.pdf.

2 : http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/nutrition/platform/
platform_en.htm

3 : http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/nutrition/platform/
docs/eu_platform_1mon-framework_en.pdf

4 : http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/nutrition/platform/
docs/eu_platform_2mon-framework_en.pdf