Healthy weight in children (health and wellbeing needs in South Tyneside)

• It is widely accepted that no commissioned interventions will be enough to tackle the current childhood obesity issue and that a whole systems approach is required to reverse the trends of childhood obesity. Interventions however may play a role in that whole systems approach.
• Evidence behind interventions is limited in terms of data quality so must be treat with caution. A Cochrane review of 64 RCT's demonstrated that combined behavioural lifestyle interventions, aimed at children and their families, compared to standard care or self-help can produce a significant and clinically meaningful reduction in overweight in children and adolescents.
• A similar Cochrane review looked at 20 RCT's that delivered parent only interventions. The review found that Parent-only interventions had similar effects compared with parent-child interventions and compared with those with minimal contact controls.
• The evidence base for these types of interventions is steadily growing however at present, as discussed by Cochrane, the quality of the evidence is low with loss to follow up being a particular issue.

In 2015 NICE published a quality standard that covers a range of approaches at a population level to prevent children and young people aged under 18 years from becoming overweight or obese. It includes interventions for lifestyle weight management. These statements are particularly relevant to local authorities, NHS organisations, schools and providers of lifestyle weight management programmes. The list of quality standards is as follows

• Statement 1. Children and young people, and their parents or carers, using vending machines in local authority and NHS venues can buy healthy food and drink options.
• Statement 2. Children and young people, and their parents or carers, see details of nutritional information on menus at local authority and NHS venues.
• Statement 3. Children and young people, and their parents or carers, see healthy food and drink choices displayed prominently in local authority and NHS venues.
• Statement 4. Children and young people, and their parents or carers, have access to a publicly available up‑to‑date list of local lifestyle weight management programmes.
• Statement 5. Children and young people identified as being overweight or obese, and their parents or carers as appropriate, are given information about local lifestyle weight management programmes.
• Statement 6. Family members or carers of children and young people are invited to attend lifestyle weight management programmes, regardless of their weight.
• Statement 7. Children and young people, and their parents or carers, can access data on attendance, outcomes and the views of participants and staff from lifestyle weight management programmes.
• Statement 8. (placeholder) Reducing sedentary behaviour.

The full guidance can be found here.

The government recently published the childhood obesity strategy, 'a plan for action' in which it sets out the recommended steps that will be taken at a national level to start to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity. The plan includes the following key points               

• · Introducing a soft drinks levy
• · Taking out 20% of sugar in products
• · Support innovation to enable business to make healthier products
• · Developing a new framework for updating the nutrient profile,
• · Making healthy options available in the public sector
• · Providing support with the cost of healthy foods for those who need it most.
• · Helping all children to enjoy an hour of physical activity every day
• · Improving the co-ordination of sports and physical activity programmes for schools
• · Creating a new healthy rating scheme for schools
• · Making School food healthier
• · Clearer food labelling
• · Supporting early year setting
• · Harnessing the best new technology
• · Enabling health professionals to support families

The full report can be found here.