The food industry, as a Commercial Determinant of Health, employs strategies that closely parallel those used by the tobacco industry, including manipulative marketing, policy influence, and appeals to self-regulation. Increasingly, these tactics operate across digital platforms, contributing to unhealthy dietary patterns, rising obesity levels, and widespread exposure to foods high in fat, sugar, or salt. Vulnerable groups such as children, adolescents, parents, and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities face higher risks owing to limited capacity to recognize or resist persuasive marketing and targeted commercial practices. Despite clear evidence of harm, regulatory progress remains limited, constrained by voluntary industry pledges, neoliberal policy norms, and a lack of digital-specific protections. This commentary argues for stronger, mandatory, World Health Organization-aligned regulatory measures and coordinated prevention strategies across all levels of public health prevention to reduce exposure, protect vulnerable populations, and prioritize public well-being over commercial interests.

International audience

Background:Many studies have investigated the adoption and implementation of school-based physical activity interventions, but only a few have reported on their sustainability. Understanding the factors contributing to school-based physical activity interventions being maintained or abandoned is necessary to ensure that resource investments are effective.Objective:This study aims to contribute to this understanding. We investigated the actions and strategies developed by the school teams participating in the Quebec Active at school! initiative in ensuring that the tailored interventions they had developed over the three-year degressive funding were maintained.Methods:Target population was the 415 schools that reached the end of the three-year funding period in 2020. An online survey consisting of 27 multiple choice questions, each followed by open-ended questions in which respondents explained or justified their choice, was sent to all participating schools.Results:A total of 397 of the 415 schools responded to the survey. The analysis showed that the school teams have integrated actions to foster sustainability during initial project planning and adoption. Eight main strategies were deployed to sustain the interventions: maintenance of the most popular physical activities, inclusion of the 60-min daily physical activity (DPA) initiative in the school Educational Project, student involvement in implementing DPA, maintaining a person in charge of DPA implementation, maintaining the committee in charge of DPA implementation, training new staff, researching new sources of funding, maintaining developed collaborations.Conclusion:The initiative’s bottom-up approach has favored school teams developing various sustainability strategies, whether at the institutional, organizational or community level. Given the acceleration of contemporary changes, it is inevitable that DPA interventions will need to be adapted and transformed. Therefore, what should be sustained is the schools’ capacity building and innovativeness that has been generated by the new program implementation.

The health informational practices of Indigenous community members living in urban areas remain understudied in Quebec (Canada), despite their importance given rapid population growth and unmet needs. These practices became even more crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many health services were disrupted. In collaboration with the Native Friendship Centre of Lanaudière, this study explores how Indigenous people living in urban settings in Quebec accessed, interpreted, and used health information during the pandemic. We conducted 24 in-person qualitative interviews between September 2021 and February 2022 and analyzed the data through a thematic content analysis, guided by the concept of trust as a relational and subjective construct. This project was not conducted under the OCAP® (Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession) principles, as it focused on individual lived experiences of urban Indigenous participants in collaboration with a community partner, without involving collective data governance mechanisms.Findings show that informational practices were diverse and multifaceted, combining multiple media sources with a preference for locally shared information through social networks and community organizations. It is important to underscore that participants' mistrust of government sources cannot be attributed solely to the COVID-19 infodemic. While media saturation and the dissemination of contradictory messages contributed to uncertainty, this mistrust is also deeply rooted in the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, including systemic racism, intergenerational trauma, and experiences of exclusion and harm within the health system. This structural context continues to shape how information is received, interpreted, and acted upon. The study underscores the need to approach informational practices through a lens that centers Indigenous lived realities, historical memory, and self-determination.

Objetivo: describir el nivel de desarrollo de habilidades para la vida en estudiantes adolescentes de colegios públicos de la provincia Sabana Centro, Colombia. Métodos: estudio cuantitativo descriptivo de corte transversal, realizado con 116 estudiantes de bachillerato de cuatro colegios públicos de la provincia Sabana Centro, con edades entre 14 y 18 años, con muestreo por conveniencia. El instrumento utilizado fue el test de habilidades para la vida que consta de 10 dimensiones y 80 ítems. Se realizaron pruebas de estadística descriptiva. Resultados: el nivel con mayor porcentaje obtenido por todos los estudiantes en las 10 dimensiones de habilidades para la vida fue normal bajo, oscilando entre 43.1 % en la dimensión Solución de problemas y conflictos, y 61.2 % en Pensamiento crítico. Las dimensiones que puntuaron en nivel superior fueron Pensamiento creativo (42.2 %), y Manejo de tensiones y estrés (36.2 %). Las habilidades con mayor porcentaje en el nivel inferior fueron Manejo de emociones y sentimientos (91.4 %) y Solución de problemas y conflictos (80.2 %). En el análisis por sexo, las mujeres obtuvieron mejores resultados en 7 dimensiones de Habilidades para la Vida comparativamente con los hombres; en la dimensión Manejo de tensiones y estrés, el resultado fue igual en hombres y mujeres, cada uno con 18.1 % en el nivel superior. Los hombres obtuvieron mejores resultados que las mujeres en las dimensiones de Comunicación efectiva y asertiva, y Manejo de emociones y sentimientos. Conclusiones: el nivel de desarrollo normal bajo de los participantes es un llamado de atención para todos los profesionales que trabajan en el ambiente escolar. Fortalecer estas habilidades en la adolescencia, e incluso en etapas más tempranas de la vida, genera mecanismos protectores y favorables para una vida saludable, prevenir riesgos, enfermedades y muertes tempranas, evitables. El trabajo en estas Habilidades implica acciones intersectoriales que facilitan la corresponsabilidad social.

There is a complex interplay of multiple factors across numerous domains underlying obesity and the emergence of the global health problem known as the double burden of malnutrition (DBM), where people are both obese and malnourished. Moreover, there is inequity in the burden of obesity and DBM, with higher rates of both in low-income communities, which comprise predominantly people of color (both in the U.S. and internationally). This article aims to provide an integrated overview of the different causes and effects of obesity and its impact on the family unit. Importantly, we examine broader influences, such as the environmentally unsustainable transnational food system, the rise of ultra-processed foods, and the structural barriers that keep communities of color at the highest risk for obesity and DBM. The review includes recommendations for future research, specifically how to implement more environmentally sustainable food systems at the community and family levels.

International audience

Considering the high risk of contracting infectious diseases such as COVID-19 among employees of various industries, it is necessary to design and implement preventive and empowerment strategies in the face of these diseases. Understanding the communities and designing effective educational models can prevent the spread and transmission of this disease in different communities. This study was a quasi-experimental study from social methodology and in this study design the formation of groups is not randomized; the groups are naturally formed. Exploratory factor analysis was used to design the questionnaire as well as the multivariable logistic regression model to develop the educational empowerment model. The sample size in this phase was 347 men in the year 2022 in the center of Tehran City, Iran. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 23. The results of multivariable logistic regression showed that the perceived fear, perceived social barriers, and also the perceived individual barriers of COVID-19 prevention behavior could predict the COVID-19 individual preventive behaviors. Furthermore, there was a significant correlation between the perceived social barriers to COVID-19 prevention and the perceived fear of COVID-19 (P-value < 0.05). During the intervention phase, 100 men were educated and empowered in each intervention and control group. Comparing the pre-test and post-test with the statistical tests indicated that the designed educational model in this study significantly changed people's attitude toward COVID-19, the COVID-19 social preventive behaviors, and COVID-19 individual preventive behaviors (P-value < 0.05).