Mend (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition ... Do it!) has been credited with helping children lose weight and improve their fitness and self-esteem. It operates in more than 200 locations across England and Wales and has worked with more than 25,000 families.
The social enterprise is the official "national third sector partner" of the Department of Health's (DoH) Change4Life campaign, and was developed in partnership with child health experts at Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London's Institute of Child Health.
Uncertain future
But Rachael McGrath, partnership development director at Mend, told CYP Now that budget cuts and uncertainty over the future of public health threaten to derail its work.
"Several of our long-standing primary care trust and local authority commissioners who have used Mend to help families get fit and healthy are sadly unable to renew their contracts this year due to funding cuts," she explained. "Furthermore, the lack of clarity over which authorities will be responsible for reducing child obesity in the future is causing a stagnation of the market, with many commissioners opting for much shorter contracts or just not renewing at all."
McGrath warned that evidence-based obesity programmes are vital to preventing today's children from developing chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cancer in years to come.
"With obesity currently costing the NHS £4.2bn each year, it's very concerning to see child obesity slip off the priority list," she said.
Sue Eardley, head of health policy at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, argued that the UK is "in the middle of a child obesity epidemic", with one in three children currently overweight or classified as clinically obese.
"Programmes such as Mend and Change4Life have been crucial in helping parents and children tackle this serious issue through education, encouragement and enjoyable activities and their programmes are investing in the future of hundreds of children and adults to help achieve healthier lifestyles," she said. "To hear that such services are now facing loss of funding is very worrying."
She added that there is no evidence to support the government's current "nudge" approach to reducing obesity, which hinges on gently persuading people to make healthier choices in partnership with the food and drink industry.
"We need a strategy to turn the tide of poor eating and exercise habits and are keen to contribute to the new DoH obesity strategy, which we expect to be unveiled this autumn, to ensure it provides a strong focus on children and young people's needs," she said.
"It's naive to think we can defuse the ticking time bomb of long-term effects on health with simply a nudge here and a nudge there. Voluntary agreements with industry may have an impact, but what will make a difference is an evidence-based, and possibly regulatory, approach."
Long-term consequences
Tam Fry, honorary chair of the Child Growth Foundation, accused the government of attempting to stem childhood obesity on the cheap. "The longer the government dithers, the longer there will be children getting fatter and that will build up into long-term consequences for the NHS. We have a national obesity problem and we should have a concerted national strategy that seeks to overcome it."
A spokeswoman for the DoH said tackling childhood obesity is a priority.
"We will publish a document on obesity later in the year that sets out how this major public health challenge will be tackled in the new public health and NHS systems, and the role that key partners can play," she said.
