CYP Now - Impact of Cuts to Spending on Children’s Centres on Childhood Obesity

When government-funded Sure Start children’s centres launched in 1999, obesity prevention and the narrowing of health inequalities were explicit aims.

Researchers say reversing cuts to Sure Start could be effective as part of a wider approach to reducing childhood obesity. Picture: Adobe Stock

Report: Impact of Cuts to Spending on Children’s Centres on Childhood Obesity

Authors: Kate Mason, Alexandros Alexiou,Davara Lee Bennett, Carolyn Summerbell, Ben Barr, David Taylor-Robinson

Published by: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, June 2021

SUMMARY

Evaluation of the early phase of Sure Start found children at age five living in neighbourhoods with access to a Sure Start centre were less likely to be overweight than those in comparable areas without a centre.

Austerity measures, including cuts to local government funding, adopted by the UK government from 2010 resulted in the closure of many children’s centres. Researchers from the University of Liverpool set out to assess whether changes in spending after 2010 are associated with changes in the prevalence of obesity at school reception – age four to five years – particularly in areas of deprivation.

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