The original results for the study are published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. The study was performed by a team of researchers from The Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit and The University of East Anglia, coordinated by Esther van Sluijs. During the Summer term 2007, they studied the diet, physical activity and body shape of 2064 Year 5 pupils (aged 9-10 years) in 92 schools across the county of Norfolk. They also investigated their socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, and school and home neighborhood environments. According to van Sluijs, To date, the extent of the problem of physical inactivity and unhealthy dietary habits in children has been largely unknown. Good data about physical activity, assessed using valid and reliable measures in large samples, are scarce - especially in children. The aim of the SPEEDY study was to generate valid data about current diet and exercise patterns, and the factors that are most strongly associated with them. The authors sought to better understand why some children have a healthier lifestyle than others so that they can promote changes in important health behaviors. They write, Our results showed that more than two-thirds of children adhere to the physical activity guideline of accumulating at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each day, but that daily consumption of fruit or of vegetables was only reported by 56.8% and 49.9% of the children, respectively. Boys were more likely to be physically active and of normal weight than girls. In contrast, boys' reported daily consumption of healthy' foods was lower, and their consumption of snacks and unhealthy food items such as soft drinks was higher than that of girls. In addition, children from a higher socioeconomic background were more likely to eat fruit and vegetables daily. The authors say, The fact that almost 70% of children meet national physical activity guidelines indicates that a prevention of decline, rather than increasing physical activity levels, might be an appropriate intervention target, although there is some uncertainty over whether these recommended levels are really sufficient. Promotion of daily fruit and vegetable intake in this age group is also warranted, possibly focusing on children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

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For esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, they found a dose-response relationship between alcohol use and cancer development. "For example, a person drinking four glasses of alcohol had five times the risk of developing the cancer compared to a person who does not drink alcohol," Steevens said.

"Another way to explain this is that a person's lifetime risk of developing ESCC is one in 250 if that person doesn't drink alcohol and the lifetime risk would be about one in 50 if the person drinks four glasses of alcohol per day," she said.

Former and current smoking was associated with an increased risk of all three cancers, although the risks of ESCC were higher than those of EAC and GCA.

"It appeared that current smokers have the highest risks, and former smokers have an intermediate risk compared with never smokers. This was true for ESCC, EAC and GCA. These are the results when no other aspects of smoking were considered, such as the amount of cigarettes smoked per day and the number of years a person smoked," Steevens said. "When we took into account the smoking duration and frequency, it appeared that the difference in risk between former smokers and current smokers could partly be explained by these other aspects of smoking. This is also logical, because a former smoker, for example, has usually smoked fewer years than a current smoker."

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