Created by Fondazione Valter Longo, Betania Evangelical Foundation and Form.it, and funded by the Campania Region, it is a project aimed at promoting adolescent health through nutrition education, physical activity and the adoption of healthy daily habits.
The project includes a clinical study dedicated to the effects of healthy nutrition and a healthy lifestyle in adolescents, and an educational program spread across the region, designed to promote healthy lifestyles and mindful eating among young people.
Today the global trend of childhood overweight (ages 3-17) has reached a dramatic turning point, and Italy ranks close to the United States, with a prevalence of 27% of overweight girls and boys. A record peak of 40% is paradoxically recorded in Campania itself, where the American biologist, physiologist and epidemiologist Ancel Keys identified, in the post-war period, the virtuous and healthy eating model known worldwide as the “Mediterranean Diet”. It is from this land, an ancient model of health and longevity, that we want to start again to promote a new, ambitious change of course.
Three organizations of excellence are working together for the success of HEALTHY Communities, each with complementary expertise.
 Fondazione Valter Longo |
 Betania Evangelical Foundation |
 Form.it Formazione Italiana |
The project is structured along two strategic lines, from clinical research to training in schools, for a widespread impact on the health of adolescents in Campania.
A randomized controlled clinical study on 330 adolescents aged 14 to 18, to analyze the effects of healthy eating habits and lifestyle on metabolic health indicators.
Nutrition and lifestyle support programs and educational activities aimed at 25 upper secondary schools distributed across all the provinces of Campania.
It is the first clinical study designed to verify the impact of a healthy lifestyle and of healthy dietary models, such as the “Mediterranean longevity diet” and the “fasting-mimicking diet”, on the metabolic health of adolescent girls and boys aged 14 to 18. It will involve, for 12 months, 330 subjects enrolled in compliance with the inclusion criteria set out in the protocol.
The enrollment procedure includes an initial screening visit by a nutritionist, in order to assess adherence to the criteria, followed by randomization into one of three groups:
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5
Campania provinces
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14-18
Age range
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330
Adolescents
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The Mediterranean longevity diet is a diet that includes both plant-based foods (cereals, legumes, vegetables, nuts and EVO oil) and animal-based foods (fish, white meat, red meat, eggs and dairy), in a very balanced way.
Within the clinical study, it is adapted to the nutritional needs of each participant, ensuring adequate support for the adolescent’s growth.
The fasting-mimicking diet is a low-calorie, entirely plant-based 5-day dietary protocol born from over twenty years of scientific research, which improves the levels of many risk factors and markers associated with aging and related diseases. During the study, the enrolled girls and boys will undergo a maximum of 5 cycles of fasting-mimicking diet over the course of one year.
Clinical studies may include a control group. In this case, this group does not adopt any of the dietary changes assigned to the other two groups. However, at the end of the first 6 months, participants assigned to this group will be given the opportunity to adopt, for the following 6 months, the Mediterranean longevity diet or the fasting-mimicking diet.
The project reaches 25 upper secondary schools, over a period of 3 years, in all the provinces of Campania: Naples, Salerno, Caserta, Avellino and Benevento.
SSC Napoli will also contribute to this important part of the project, in order to amplify the community awareness message on the importance of movement, a healthy lifestyle and proper nutrition. The school sessions led by the nutritionists of Fondazione Valter Longo will be joined by experts in mental health and physical exercise, as well as representatives of the medical and technical staff of the Neapolitan club, who will meet and talk to the boys and girls, combining sport with physical and mental health.
The structured educational program includes:
Interactive workshops on healthy eating, physical exercise and lifestyle.
Free nutrition and lifestyle counseling service for the school community.
Personalized counseling on nutrition and lifestyle for students.
Guidance and educational materials to allow teachers to receive useful information and tools to continue, over time, a supportive effort for the health of students.
The nutritionists of Fondazione Valter Longo will follow students with critical metabolic profiles in a year-long program to help them adopt eating habits and a lifestyle that promote health and longevity.
A shared goal: taking care of young people’s health.
Students and teachers learn healthy habits and balanced lifestyles every day.
Families become protagonists, accompanying the boys and girls at every step of the journey.
The project is born from the conviction that prevention and education are fundamental tools for promoting health, awareness and healthy lifestyles, starting from the new generations. Therefore, from this vision arise the objectives that guide the project’s impact:
Reducing cardiometabolic risk factors in adolescents in Campania.
Training a generation capable of making conscious food choices.
Creating a protocol that can be exported to other Italian and European regions.