Wed, May-01-19, 01:35
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Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Lessons for parents in British city put child obesity into reverse
From The Times
London, UK
1 May, 2019
Quote:
Lessons for parents in Leeds put child obesity into reverse
A city has become the first in Britain to reduce childhood obesity after introducing mass parenting lessons, a study has revealed.
Leeds has reported that its poorest pre-school children have become thinner while nationally the obesity gap between rich and poor has widened. The data has been hailed as “astonishing”. Parenting classes for hundreds of families, which teach them how to encourage children to eat more healthily and exercise more, have been credited with making progress not seen elsewhere.
Ministers have praised the results, and experts have urged other cities to similarly target new parents.
In Leeds obesity rates in children starting school averaged 9.4 per cent between 2009 and 2013, falling to an average of 8.8 per cent over the next four years, while remaining stable in England as a whole.
The biggest fall was in the most deprived fifth of children, where rates fell from 11.5 per cent to 10.5 per cent.
Across England, obesity in this group was unchanged at 12 per cent, while in a sample of 15 cities that are demographically similar to Leeds it rose from 11.6 per cent to 11.7 per cent, according to data presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Glasgow.
Susan Jebb, a professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford, who analysed the figures, said: “The most dramatic thing is if you look at it by deprivation: the most deprived group in Leeds is doing especially well. That is astonishing. We know there is this striking relationship in England between deprivation and obesity. Nationally this gap is getting wider. But in Leeds in the reception class children there is something really striking that has gone on.”
Richer children nationally are becoming thinner, but while reception age obesity rates among the better off fell from 6.7 per cent to 6.3 per cent in England, in Leeds they fell from 6.8 per cent to 6 per cent.
Professor Jebb said the paper could not prove what had caused the decline, but linked it to a decision in Leeds to focus on pre-school children by training staff such as health visitors in “authoritative” parenting and offering classes at children’s centres.
“For new parents, parenting is all new behaviour,” Professor Jebb said. “You’re not trying to change the way they feed their children, you’re giving them a start on feeding their children.” She said ministers had shied away from the issue as they did not want to be seen to blame parents but that schools had reached the limit of what they could do when one in ten arrive already obese.
Obesity specialists have been praising a reduction in child obesity in Amsterdam, which has also introduced parenting classes. Professor Jebb said: “Everybody is going around saying Amsterdam is doing something amazing. Well, actually Leeds is too.”
Kim Roberts, of the charity Henry (Health, Exercise, Nutrition for the Really Young) said that while 34 cities used its approach, Leeds was unique in the scale and persistence of its commitment, which began a decade ago. “I would very much hope that other cities look at the inspiring example,” she said.
Tips include guided choice, such as offering children the option of carrots or broccoli for dinner rather than anything they like. Parents are advised to set a good example, including eating family meals together.
“It’s usually not information that people are lacking, it is confidence and motivation,” Ms Roberts said, adding that she wanted to give parents strength to set boundaries and resist “pester power”.
Seema Kennedy, the public health minister, is preparing national action on pre-school children. She said: “It’s great to see some promising reductions in childhood obesity . . . I hope we can learn more about this kind of work.”
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...verse-2fbrzc8mc
Quote:
LEEDS OBESITY PLAN
Leeds child obesity: ‘My two-year-old only ate baked beans’
Like many two-year-olds, Libby-Joy Mould was a fussy eater. “She would eat beans and sausages seven days a week,” her mother Belinda recalled.
The hope of finding ways to broaden her daughter’s diet helped to attract Ms Mould to parenting classes at a Leeds children’s centre. Through the course she found a way to make healthy eating fun so that Libby-Joy, now three, will happily devour broccoli, peas and sweetcorn. “She’s brilliant now, she eats just about everything,” Ms Mould, 40, said.
Although she found some of the cookery and nutritional information “quite basic”, Ms Mould said the parenting tips had made a real difference to how she raised her daughter. “What was really helpful was the idea of ‘guided choice’. I found that really fascinating. So you don’t ask, ‘Do you want to go to the park or do you want to stay at home?’ You say, ‘We’re going to the park, would you like to wear your red boots or blue boots?’ So they get some say in it.”
Giving children choice within clear boundaries also worked with food. “I would say to her, ‘Would you like scrambled eggs or would you like beans? Would you like toast or would you like beans?’ Because she still had the choice of beans, she started to try other things. That worked well.”
The classes also helped Ms Mould when her daughter did something infuriating. Instead of commanding Libby-Joy not to reach for a glass on the counter, the aim was to explain why it would be dangerous if it fell and smashed.
Remembering the lessons in the heat of family disputes could still be a challenge, she conceded, but she had taken to heart lessons on the importance of parents’ “recharging their batteries”, and going off to meditate instead of getting furious. “That has made a massive difference,” she said.
Libby-Joy is thriving and healthy and yesterday spent an hour and a half running about in the park, looking for beetles and ladybirds.
Janice Burberry, who oversees the programme for Leeds city council, said the strategy was “about sitting alongside parents and thinking through what’s right for them. Parents want to do the best for their children.”
Classes range from practical issues such as where to buy cheap vegetables locally and how to make them last in the freezer, to the importance of empathy. “It’s a real mix of factual stuff about what you should be eating and being active but also about being a responsive parent,” Ms Burberry said. “It is up to you to set boundaries.”
She said it was crucial that classes were available to all parents rather than targeted at those with problems.
“We wouldn’t be telling them they need to come, because that wouldn’t work. They have to want to come,” she said. “It’s completely no-blame. We are not coming round pointing the finger at parents and saying, ‘There is an issue here and it’s your responsibility’. That’s absolutely key.”
Dutch city has the recipe for cutting obesity
Six years ago the city of Amsterdam was spurred into action by worryingly high levels of child obesity. Now its extreme measures are paying off (writes Bruno Waterfield).
Children are banned from taking fruit juice or other soft drinks into school, where only tap water is allowed. Also outlawed are birthday feasts of cakes or sweets in the classroom and branches of McDonald’s operating near schools have agreed that unaccompanied children can only buy fruit, not chips or burgers.
To ram home the message to the fast food industry, Amsterdam’s city council refuses sponsorship to events that take money from Coca Cola or McDonald’s.
Parents are encouraged to put small children on bikes without pedals or to get them walking to school rather than wheeling them there in push chairs.
In 2013, more than 20 per cent of children in the Dutch city were found to be overweight or obese, way above the national average of 13 per cent in the Netherlands.
The “Amsterdam model” of tackling obesity, costing £5 million a year, begins with counselling for pregnant women and continues for the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. The results are striking. The council’s health department figures show the number of overweight and obese children in Amsterdam to be down 12 per cent while the national average has remained the same.
Children and parents are given cooking classes to teach, as the council puts it, “healthy varieties of ethnic dishes”.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...beans-320cxbhgh |
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( Got this from a gardener on his way back from a conference; he sat next to an MD at a different conference. Gardening was among the top 4 activities for longevity.)
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