Health professionals team up to fight child obesity

The Academy of Royal Medical Colleges campaign will begin with a three-month evidence-gathering inquiry. 

It will seek the views of healthcare professionals, local authorities, education providers, charities, campaign groups and the public, to identify strategies that work in preventing or reducing obesity covering five key areas:

Professor Terence Stephenson, vice-chair of the academy and president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, is chairing the campaign’s steering group, which comprises representatives from all 21 royal medical colleges and faculties. 

The campaign’s first report will be published later this year, offering a series of practical recommendations for how the medical profession, individuals, organisations and government can develop an effective and coherent approach to reducing obesity levels.

Professor Terence Stephenson said: “It is unprecedented that the medical royal colleges and faculties have come together on such a high-profile public health issue. 

“But we’ve done so because we recognise the huge crisis waiting to happen and believe that current strategies to reduce obesity are failing to have a significant impact.”

Professor Sir Neil Douglas, chair of the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, added: “This won’t be just another report that sits on the shelf and gathers dust; it will form the bedrock of our ongoing campaigning activity.

“We are absolutely determined to push for whatever changes need to happen to make real progress in tackling – which is why we’re casting the net wide to get input from a range of organisations and individuals.”

Based on current trends, half of children will be obese or overweight by 2020. The UK now has the highest rate of obesity in Europe with one in three children overweight or obese by the age of nine. Obesity in children under 11 has risen by more than 40 per cent in the past ten years.