Abstract

"To improve young people's refusal skills to enable them to resist the temptations of everyday life" - that is one of the priorities formulated by the Dutch government in its National Health Policy Memorandum of May 2011. Almost half of the interventions intended to improve the lifestyle of children and young people provides practical tools to strengthen their refusal skills. This is a finding of a review of lifestyle interventions conducted by the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) on behalf of the Ministry of Health. Using the intervention database of the Centre for Healthy Living (RIVM/CGL), 53 interventions were identified that aim to promote a healthy lifestyle and that had been classified as 'theoretically sound' or 'effective'. Topics include alcohol, drugs, physical activity/exercise, overweight, smoking, sexuality and nutrition. In 22 of these 53 lifestyle interventions, improving refusal skills is a component of the intervention. The attention paid to refusal skills varies by subject. Strengthening refusal skills is part of almost all interventions that address sexual behaviour and of two thirds of the interventions that focus on alcohol, tobacco and drugs. In most of the interventions that focus on healthy diet, overweight and physical activity/exercise, strengthening refusal skills is not part of the intervention. The effectiveness of most of the available lifestyle interventions has not (yet) been established. Hence it is hard to judge whether the incorporation of refusal skills will increase the effectiveness of an intervention. Further research into the association between refusal skills and lifestyle among young people in the Netherlands is recommended.