Trends in Presentations of Environmental and Policy Studies Related to Physical Activity, Nutrition, and Obesity at Society of Behavioral Medicine, 1995–2010: a Commentary to Accompany the Active Living Research Supplement to Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Active Living Research was funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2001with a primarymission of building evidence on the role of environmental and policy factors in shaping physical activity, with the goal of contributing to new approaches to promoting physical activity that would have broad reach and sustainable effects [1]. The assumption was that little research was being done at that time on environmental and policy factors, because physical activity research was based on theories and models that emphasized psychological and social influences on behavior [e.g., 2–4], leading to interventions largely targeted to individuals and small groups. Active Living Research was explicitly based on ecological models that embody the concept of multiple levels of influence on behaviors, including built environments and policies. Though ecological models have a long history in psychology and health promotion, they had not been applied frequently in research [5, 6]. A defining principle of ecological models is that because behavior is influenced by intrapersonal (e.g., biological, psychological, and affective), interpersonal (e.g., social support and culture), built environment (e.g., access to resources), and policy (e.g., from government and industry) variables, interventions are likely to bemost effective when they change presumed mediators at all of these levels [7]. A key indicator that ecological models are being applied would be measurement or manipulation of policy and physical environment variables that are not specified by the more traditional “psychosocial” models [2–4]. During the 1990s, authors noted that ecological models were not being widely applied in health behavior research or interventions [8, 9], except for tobacco control [10]. Active Living Research is now part of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s commitment to reverse the rise in childhood obesity by 2015. Several ecological models have been developed since the early 2000s that are specific to obesity, nutrition, and physical activity [11–15], and these models are guiding major initiatives in obesity prevention in the USA [16–18] and internationally [11, 19]. There appears to be a consensus reached by authoritative groups that multilevel interventions emphasizing policy and environmental changes are required to control the global obesity epidemic. However, it is unclear as to the extent to which the evidence base to support environmental and policy interventions in obesity, nutrition, and physical activity is growing. An early indicator of scientific progress is presentations at scientific conferences. To explore recent trends in the application of ecological models to obesity-related topics, abstracts of papers presented at Society of Behavioral Medicine conferences over a 15-year period were systematically coded. Society of Behavioral Medicine is an appropriate scientific conference for such an analysis because it is a venue for leading behavioral research on obesity, physical activity, and nutrition. Four years of Society of Behavioral Medicine conference presentations were content analyzed to illustrate 15-year J. F. Sallis (*) : J. A. Carlson :A. M. Mignano Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 3900 Fifth Avenue, Suite 310, San Diego, CA 92103, USA e-mail: jsallis@ucsd.edu