Parents key to reducing overweight in children

Editor—From a programme that is currently running in Bolton we have evidence of the importance of including parents in lifestyle interventions designed to tackle childhood obesity. We have found that parents do not just need to support their children's efforts. Rather it is their taking an equal part in the programme that best supports the family changes that Dame Yve Buckland advocates.¹

A further challenge is to ensure that the lifestyle changes the programme supports are sustained in the long term. Although our programme supports families in accessing and using local leisure provision, we have found a lack of understanding of the needs of such a group by many leisure service personnel, or few suitable facilities to meet their needs.

Although parents should be partners in tackling this growing problem, professionals across a wide range of agencies need to find better ways of ensuring that such groups are not merely expected to fit into services that do not meet their needs and that we increase the political pressure to redress the fact that we have largely handed leisure and food provision over to commercial enterprise.