Contextual influences on the development of obesity in children: a case study of UK South Asian communities.

"Conflict of interest statement The authors have no competing interests to declare."

"The Birmingham healthy Eating and Active lifestyle for CHildren Study (BEACHeS) is funded by the National Prevention Research Initiative (NPRI, http://www.npri.org.uk) and we are grateful to all the funding partners for their support: British Heart Foundation; Cancer Research UK; Department of Health; Diabetes UK; Economic and Social Research Council; Medical Research Council; Research and Development Office for the Northern Ireland Health and Social Services; Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Executive Health Department; Welsh Assembly Government and World Cancer Research Fund. The investigator and collaborative team include: The University of Birmingham: P Adab (PI), T Barratt, KK Cheng, A Daley, J Duda, P Gill, M Pallan, J Parry; The Nutritional Epidemiology Group at the University of Leeds: J Cade; The MRC Epidemiology Unit, Cambridge: U Ekelund; The University of Edinburgh: R Bhopal; Birmingham City Council: S Passmore; Heart of Birmingham PCT: M Howard; Birmingham Community Nutrition and Dietetic Service: E McGee. We thank the dedicated team of researchers at The University of Birmingham for managing and co-ordinating the project. We are also grateful for support from the Department of Health Support for Science (MidRec), the Health Foundation, Waterstones, Tesco and the School Stickers Company. We especially want to thank the children, families, schools and communities included in the study (http://www.beaches.bham.ac.uk/) without whom this project would not have been possible."