NHS fit camp aims to cut obesity

[Demi]

BBC News Online
London, UK
21 July, 2008


NHS fit camp aims to cut obesity

By Tulip Muzumdar
Newsbeat health reporter

We as a nation are getting fatter. One in five men and a quarter of women are obese and as many as 30,000 people die prematurely every year from obesity-related conditions in the UK.

To combat the problem the government in England is spending more than £1m in one area of the country, on getting obese children in Rotherham to special residential fit camps where they'll spend six weeks losing weight and learning how to lead a healthier lifestyle.

It's estimated that one in three children in the town is overweight or obese, and six in 10 adults.

The local health authority is spending £3m over the next three years on the fit camp to try to deal with the problem.
Thirty-eight eight to 16-year-olds are on a summer long scheme, which is a last resort after other ways of losing weight have been tried.

The parents of the children at the camp also have to get involved, and there are weekly check-up sessions after the residential course to make sure all the good things the kids learn are actually put into practice at home.

There are also healthy cooking classes for parents.

Hard graft

The daily routine for the children at the fit camp is demanding.

While most other kids are enjoying their school holidays, these children are up at eight o'clock every morning.

It's then a long day of physical activities like boxercise or basketball sessions.

They'll also learn about nutrition and how to make healthy snacks, like fruit smoothies.

The related social problems of being overweight at school, like bullying, are also addressed.

Jamal, 11, is on the course.

He said: "At primary school they used to call me Chubby Brown sometimes and they always used to make fun of me.

"It makes you feel a bit upset and a bit sad. It makes you less confident."

The government says it is up to parents to teach their children a healthy lifestyle but that isn't happening in many cases.

Recent statistics from Carnegie Weight Management, who run the scheme, show most parents with overweight kids thought their children were a normal weight, while a third of parents who had obese children described their weight as "just right".

Fitness cost

Dealing with obesity in children is a big issue for the Department of Health because it costs the government so much money to deal with later on, somewhere in the region of £3bn in England alone.

It increases risk factors of a wide range of health problems including heart disease and diabetes.

Jeneisha is eight and she told Newsbeat she was really looking forward to starting the scheme.

She said: "I'm feeling alright but a bit nervous about all the excitement.

"It's going to be really fun, playing rugby and games.

"I want to lose a bit of weight so people don't pick on me anymore.

"People have been calling me fat and I don't like it.

"It makes me upset. It's like someone's punching me."


Watch a BBC News report about the fitness camp (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7516728.stm)


http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/health/newsid_7516000/7516871.stm

[Demi]

From The Guardian
London, UK
22 June, 2008


Child fat camp: '1 in 3 children in Rotherham are overweight'

Martin Wainwright visits a 'fat camp' for young people in Yorkshire


Click here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/audio/2008/jul/22/wainwright.obesity) to view the audio news report

[Demi]

From The Guardian
London, UK
22 July, 2008

Young pioneers in the frontline of NHS battle against obesity

More than 600 people in town weigh 25 stone-plus
Other health trusts may adopt Rotherham scheme

Martin Wainwright

They were up at six, breakfast was fruit and by midday Britain's first group of NHS-financed children to go on a weight loss camp had played football, run circuits and gone for a swim.

"It's just what I wanted," said 11-year-old Hamid Mohammed, one of 35 pioneers from Rotherham in South Yorkshire, who had been picked to spend six weeks on the £3,250-a-head scheme.

"I don't get to do a lot of stuff at home. Activities are what I need. People at school call me stuff and I don't like it," he said. Losing two of his current 11 stone is his target, agreed with doctors under the most radical anti-obesity drive seen in Britain.

Launched yesterday, the Rotherham booking at the Carnegie weight loss camp in Leeds is part of a campaign by the town's primary care trust which other health authorities are watching.

Other measures include family slimming schools requiring three-and-a-half hours weekly attendance, regular phone checks on slimming progress and gastric band surgery for adults.

More than 600 people in the town weigh 25 stone or more, and one in three local children are clinically obese.

Carol Weir, organiser of the three-year scheme for the PCT, said: "Things have got to the stage where we can't see that children are obese, because we've got so used to the sight of overweight ones."

The programme has targeted 2,000 families in Rotherham, with young people weighing up to 19 stone boarding at the camp.

They will mix with children from across the country and overseas until mid-August on a course which has seen 96% of previous participants lose weight, and 85% stay slimmer in the long term.

"They're all in the same boat here - for the first time in their lives they feel normal," said Prof Paul Gateley, professor of exercise and obesity at Leeds Metropolitan University, who has run the camp for nine years.

"The most important thing in developing a healthy lifestyle is feeling included, rather than excluded, which is the normal pattern in their lives at home and school.

"We believe in support, not shouting at people. Stigmatising obesity hasn't worked - the national rate has risen year on year for the last 30 years. Rotherham is the first health trust to show a commitment on this scale. Let's hope that others follow." The decision to join a scheme previously dominated by families paying privately is likely to be copied, with Rotherham's child obesity levels not far above the national figures.

Obesity is estimated to cost the country an additional £7bn annually in medical treatment and benefits as well as markedly increasing the risk of heart disease and other serious conditions.

"It is a lot of money we are spending," said Weir, who has the budget to increase the number of weight campers in the next two years.

"But we are confident that the scheme will pay for itself in terms of preventing ill health which would cost all of us more, later on."

After leaving camp, the children and their families will sign up for weekly Carnegie Club sessions, taking them up to Christmas on a programme of follow-up advice, with doctors, healthy eating specialists and physiotherapists.

The Department of Health warned last year that 60% of adults could be obese within 40 years if health education was not improved.

Another of the young Carnegie campers, 12-year-old Izzy Sproson, who wants to lose two of her nine stone, agreed with them. "We're learning how to get a sensible mixture of food and exercise," she said. "It's too easy if you're left on your own just to go for the fattening things, like getting a Chinese sweet and sour and eating only the rice."

Another camper, 16-year-old Ross Gittings from north London, is on his third year at Carnegie. He has six stone to go before he reaches the target agreed with doctors of 13 stone.

"It can be nerve-wracking at first and a bit scary if you're away from home for the first time for a long period like this," he told Hamid and Izzy. "But you soon settle down and start getting on with it. You'll find you have a great time."

Mountain biking and treasure hunts have been added to the curriculum, to relieve challenges such as a two-mile run.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/22/nhs.children