Lightening the Load: tackling overweight and obesity - Press Release
12 June 2006
In the offensive against obesity and our growing girths health professionals will welcome a new ally.
Lightening the Load: tackling overweight and obesity, the National Heart Forum and Faculty of Public Health's new online obesity toolkit has been launched. The free toolkit aims to aid health professionals develop local strategies to tackle overweight and obesity in children and adults.
It's not just the middle aged whose stomachs are spreading. Nearly a quarter of people in England are obese and current trends suggest that today's children could have shorter life expectancy than their parents. Unless action to reverse this trend is successful at least one-third of adults, one-third of girls and one-fifth of boys will be obese by 2020.
The Obesity Toolkit offers practical help. Lightening the Load aids health workers plan local action. It shows how to take account of the specific needs of local populations, factoring in their socioeconomic and psychological experiences.
Paul Lincoln, chief executive of National Heart Forum says: "This is a one-stop resource that should prove invaluable to strategists and frontline staff working in primary care and local authorities. The toolkit complements the NICE evidence base and was commended by the National Audit Office / Audit Commission Obesity Report and it is backed by the Department of Health."
Professor Rod Griffiths, President of the Faculty of Public Health adds: "What's critical is that with all this reorganisation going on - especially in England - public health funds ring-fenced by the Choosing Health white paper are protected and used for the purpose they were intended - that is, tackling the epidemic of overweight and obesity. The Faculty and National Heart Forum's Obesity toolkit will provide continuity for public health and primary care teams - in whatever shape or form they may take - and sets out the steps they need to take to ensure that this generation doesn't die before their parents."
Lightening the Load focuses on multi-sector partnership and does not provide clinical guidelines. The focus is prevention rather than cure. Although, specifically tailored to England, much of the information and guidance apply equally to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The toolkit will complement the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) definitive final guidance on the prevention and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children, due to be published in November 2006.
Dr Alan Maryon-Davis of Southwark Primary Care Trust and consultant editor explains:
"The obesity toolkit focuses on the practicalities of the 'how' and on working with key agencies, such as local authorities, at a local level. The checklists, proformas, and a prevalence ready reckoner contained within Lightening the Load provide handy, 'off-the-peg' tools to make tackling overweight and obesity less daunting for public health and primary care practitioners."
Availability:
Lightening the load: Tackling overweight and obesity is now only available online. Hard copies will be available following the publication of NICE guidance in December 2006.
Press Contacts
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