Evaluation of a nationwide mass media campaign aimed at prevention of weight gain in Dutch young adults

The prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing rapidly. In the Netherlands, the prevalence of obesity has roughly doubled over the last decade and now more than 40% of the Dutch adult population is overweight and more than 10% obese. To promote weight-gain preventive actions among non-obese Dutch young adults, in December 2002 the Netherlands Nutrition Centre launched the nationwide campaign ‘Maak je niet dik!’1. Mass media, such as television and radio (commercials), newspapers and magazines, a brochure and posters were used to convey the campaign messages. The aim of this thesis was to contribute to the planned development, implementation and evaluation of weight-gain prevention strategies to be used in the mass media campaign. To promote systematic, evidence-based and theory-driven development and implementation of the ‘Maak je niet dik!’ campaign, a basic, simple model for planning and promoting health education was used during the research. The first three phases of this model refer to the ‘needs assessment’ used to identify serious health problems as well as to identify the most important and appropriate changeable determinants of risk factors for these problems. The needs assessment is followed by the ‘development of the intervention’. In this phase, those intervention methods that induce change in the determinants identified by the needs assessment are ascertained and developed. These methods are then translated into deliverable intervention strategies and evaluated for their efficacy.

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