Systematic reviews of nutrition, physical activity and obesity intervention literature provide the U.S. Task Force on Community Preventive Services evidence of program effectiveness for recommendations to guide public health practice and policy decisions. This information is available at the Guide’s website: www.TheCommunityGuide.org.

A new addition to the Community Guide homepage is a link to the Obesity Prevention & Control systematic reviews. The obesity reviews evaluate how effective programs are in changing adiposity outcomes such as BMI, weight in pounds, skinfold thickness, etc.. Four settings – worksite, school, healthcare delivery system, and community-based programs – are the topics of review. The Task Force recommends worksite-based programs that include both physical activity and diet-related components, based on evidence of modest weight loss at 6 months after the intervention program. For details go to www.TheCommunityGuide.org/obese . Updates of reviews on the effectiveness of school, healthcare system, and community-based programs are currently in-progress.

The Nutrition systematic reviews look at intake-related outcomes – consumption of fruits & vegetables, total fat, saturated fat, etc. – to determine program effectiveness. The Task Force recently reviewed multicomponent school-based programs to improve nutritional behaviors among children and adolescents and concluded insufficient evidence to determine whether or not these programs were effective. Reviewed programs relied on children’s self-report of dietary intake, which showed little change in consumption of fruits, vegetables, fat or saturated fat. See www.TheCommunityGuide.org/nutrition for more details. Currently in-progress are reviews of community-wide approaches to increase fruit & vegetable consumption in households.

The Physical Activity recommendations from the Community Guide Task Force include a variety of interventions that range from community-wide campaigns, to behavioral and social approaches to increasing physical activity, to environmental and policy interventions. These are available at www.TheCommunityGuide.org/pa