Research and Scholarly Activity

When Fat is a Family Issue

The important, ongoing childhood obesity work by tutors at the University of Chichester and specialists at St Richards’s hospital was highlighted in The Times recently.

In a lengthy article When Fat is a Family Issue, published in The Times (Saturday 8 October) the results of a project, encouraging obese children and their parents to exercise, were reviewed.

Physical Education experts at the University of Chichester have been working on the New LEAF (Life-Style, Eating, Activity and Fitness) Project in collaboration with St Richard’s Hospital – which has spent five years working with overweight children. Their findings found that dietary treatment alone is largely ineffective in treating childhood obesity. Activity sessions, on the other hand, where the fear factor has been removed from exercise, and schemes where families are involved have proved more successful in motivating the children to achieve fat loss.

Dr Julia Potter, a senior PE lecturer at Chichester says, “Inviting families and friends to participate is hugely important. We try to organise walks and trips that can motivate everyone to change family lifestyles. It helps a lot when you take them out of the routine context of school.”

The article reported on the success of this significant project, “Since the programme began one third of the children who have participated have achieved long-lasting fat (not crude weight) loss, a high success rate compared with other projects.”

A few days after the article appeared in The Times the New LEAF project was also mentioned by the Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP, Secretary of State for Health, in a speech about clinical leadership in the NHS.

She said, "Throughout the NHS, there are superb examples of clinicians leading the way – working across professional boundaries, working with managers and other organisations to create better health and healthcare.

Clinicians like Professor David Candy, a Paediatric Gastroenterologist at St Richard’s Hospital, West Sussex, who is working with the University of Chichester’s PE department to run a pioneering project to tackle childhood obesity."

Contact: J.Potter@chi.ac.uk or S.Groves@chi.ac.uk

Pictured above are Dr Suzanne Groves and Dr Julia Potter, Senior Lecturers in the University's PE department, who are both heavily involved with the New LEAF project.