MPs urge improved pre-birth efforts to tackle child obesity
Jess Brown
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Attempts to tackle child obesity must start before birth, a group of peers and MPs have said.
A report by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on a fit and healthy childhood highlights the importance of nutritional advice for expectant mothers in order to ensure their children get a healthy start to life.
It said that in the UK, unlike the US, there are no evidence-based recommendations on appropriate weight gain during pregnancy. Meanwhile few women are aware of reported links between smoking during pregnancy and childhood obesity.
"It is vital that healthcare professionals are properly aware of the risks of excess weight gain during pregnancy and support women to manage their weight healthily," the report states.
"So that they are enabled to approach the task with confidence, government should recommend and support a national training programme for professionals in raising the issue of obesity and weight management at this time in ways that are sensitive and respectful."
The report goes on to recommend that following the birth, healthcare professionals should be encouraged to ensure that support and guidance is ongoing. This should include continuing advice to the mother on lifestyle and weight monitoring, advice and support on best practice for breastfeeding, and advice to ensure that a mother’s mental health needs are addressed.
The report points to the fact that the UK spends £10bn each year on treating diabetes but less than £638m a year on obesity prevention programmes.
The report calls for investment in every aspect of a child's life – from the portion sizes of the food and drink that they consume to the way their school encourages daily exercise and how local authorities deliver provision to their family.
"What is required from government is a holistic approach, propelled by a cross-cutting and properly funded strategy, overseen by a cabinet minister with sufficient authority over all policy areas relevant to child wellbeing to ensure that the necessary changes in policy, budgets and guidance actually happen."
Helen Clark, lead author of the report, titled The National Obesity Framework, said a fresh approach to child obesity is necessary.
“We hope that our report will be useful to the government as it aims to address an obesity crisis that is ruinous for the nation’s health and crippling to the exchequer.
“A new cabinet minister for children is the lynchpin of a successful strategy and would prove that the government means business. We hope that such a post will be the centrepiece of the government’s own framework when published.’
June O'Sullivan, chief executive of the London Early Years Foundation, said: "We are delighted that the concern about children's health and wellbeing is being taken seriously.
"The issue is so serious that we must be speedy in our response and collaborate and co-ordinate all our efforts effectively. To make a difference we need to weave nutrition, physical development and behaviour change into a strong strategy."
