The Results of the "My Challenge" Camp in Addressing Childhood Obesity.

Introduction: This article presents the development, implementation and results of the project "An interdisciplinary approach to the treatment of overweight children" under the name "My Challenge" camp. It is a 2-week multidisciplinary programme involving a physician, a dietitian, a psychologist, an occupational therapist or physiotherapist and a kinesiologist. The children stay in camp for 2 weeks and are actively involved in the daily preparation of healthy meals, participate in cooking workshops and interactive nutrition lessons, and are active outdoors throughout the programme. Methods: The study included 117 overweight or obese children, aged 7-18 years, 66 girls and 51 boys from ten camps between 2017 and 2023. Completed dietary questionnaires and anthropometric measurements were compared at baseline, after 2 weeks, and after 1 month. Results: Changes in children's diets include an increase in meal frequency, in higher vegetables, fish, and seafood consumption, lower consumption of fried food and reduced consumption of sugary drinks. Boys more frequently consume fried food than girls and less frequently consume milk and dairy products. After one month, there was a decrease in body fat percentage, waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio in both genders. Conclusions: The "My Challenge" camp demonstrates promising outcomes in combating childhood obesity. Through a two-week multidisciplinary programme, significant improvements in dietary habits and anthropometric measures were observed. The findings underscore the importance of preventive education programmes for children in addressing the long-term health consequences of obesity. Further research and continued implementation of such initiatives are warranted to effectively tackle this public health issue.

Environmental and occupational exposures associated with male infertility.

The upsurge in male infertility over the last two decades, possibly due to environmental exposure, has raised significant interest, particularly boosted by reports from fertility clinics, which showed that chronic diseases and hereditary or other medical conditions might only partially explain current incidence of male infertility. Both environmental and occupational settings may have a significant role in exposure to complex mixtures of endocrine disruptors (ED), which play a major role in fertility disorders. The aim of this review is to give an insight into the current knowledge on exposure settings which may be associated with male infertility. Our study relied on a systematic search of PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science for articles published between January 2000 and September 2020. It showed that some well documented factors associated with male infertility include smoking, and physiological disturbances or chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes, which in turn, may also reflect lifestyle choices and environmental exposures, especially to EDs such as phthalates, bisphenols, pesticides, and flame retardants. However, the number of studies on the aetiology of male infertility is still too low in comparison with the size of affected population. Occupational health follow-ups and medical surveillance do not collect any data on male infertility, even though ED chemicals are part of many technological processes.