Letter from the Editor

We are very proud to introduce to you this Supplement summarizing the 27th annual Congress of the European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG) taking place in Rome from November 15th to 17th 2017. ECOG is a pan-European group of professionals dealing with childhood obesity and overweight. ECOG brings together experts from across the board including paediatricians, psychologists, nutritionists, geneticists, physical activity experts, economists and many more. The group was founded in 1991, and its mission is to help the European community at large to fully understand the health, social, psychological and economic impacts of childhood obesity, and work together to take this growing problem “off the menu” in Europe. ECOG provides a platform for the exchange of views and experiences with the aim to improve and foster the transfer of knowledge, skills and clinical practices among professionals working on various aspects of childhood obesity. We are honoured by the presence of a very high level group of speakers coming from different European countries and covering various fields of knowledge and expertise including speakers from the World Health Organization and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. During the congress we will discuss a wide array of scientific topics, including the long-term consequences of obesity and its prevention, microbiota, the origins of obesity, the assessment of physical function and ability in obese children activity, the economic impact of obesity, marketing addressing children and childhood obesity surveillance in Europe. A special focus will be given to the cost of obesity and marketing practices that address children. As medical professionals we are used to consider children’s health as the most important issue in our work and our society. The challenge is to share this view with as many economists, politicians and other important decision makers as possible. In this perspective, the Session about the cost of obesity will be dedicated to better understand the economic impact of obesity on governments and public budgets and will outline measures and strategies to reduce this impact. We need to make sure that policy and decision makers fully understand that many obese children will become obese adults; this will have significant consequences on our health systems, so it is key that decision makers recognize the social and economic value to invest in the design and implementation of concrete and effective actions to prevent obesity since the earlier phases of childhood. And, of course, we will discuss also the never-ending story of marketing practices addressing children. We will discuss why it is time to end such practices and why we need to do it now for the good of our children and our societies at large. The programme also includes the I.Family Symposium on the social divide in obesity, health behaviours and their determinants in European children and adolescents. Finally, ECOG, in collaboration with the organization Make Mothers Matter (MMM), will launch the European survey “Health promotion and prevention of childhood obesity: the challenges of European mothers”. This will be a unique opportunity for ECOG andMMM to survey, analyze and understand beliefs, attitudes and behaviours of thousands of European families in relation to childhood obesity and overweight. The results of the survey, expected by the end of 2018, will provide important inputs to the design of inclusive preventive programmes based on the real needs of European families. This supplement gathers all the abstracts submitted to the attention of the congress’ Scientific Committee. This year we received 82 abstracts from 27 countries. Each abstract was assessed independently by 4 reviewers, all members of our International Scientific Committee. The reviewers took into consideration the structure of the abstract, the research methods, the conclusions and the relevance with the topics that will be discussed during the congress. 21 abstracts were selected for the oral presentation sessions, 34 abstracts as chaired poster presentations and 18 abstracts for publication only. We hope that the research presented during the congress will directly impact on your daily clinical practice and prevention activities and facilitate future scientific discoveries in the field of childhood obesity.