Why don’t we just move more?

By David Stalker, CEO of the not-for-profit health body, ukactive

There’s one single message that will help us tackle the inactivity crisis: Just do more than you’re currently doing.

Researchers are saying current exercise guidelines are unrealistic. In the British Medical Journal, they argue the ‘150-minutes of physical activity’ message needs to change. We need to see a greater emphasis on simply getting inactive people to move more.

Smoking kills – we know that. Inactivity kills – we now know that, too. Cambridge University released research last week, showing that twice as many deaths in Europe are caused by physical inactivity than obesity – if that’s not enough of an incentive to get up off the couch and go for a walk, we’re in deep trouble.

The evidence continues to mount on the impact inactivity is having. Although you may not know what technically qualifies someone as ‘obese’ (the BMI scale), everyone has an idea of what obesity looks like. It’s easy to look in the mirror and think, ‘I’m not overweight, what have I got to worry about?’ This has got to change. It’s time to think about the health of our hearts, not just the size of our waists.

The Cambridge study bolsters the ukactive’s ongoing work to underpin the fight against inactivity with a firm evidence base. It’s a welcome piece of work on the European population, but closer to home, the recent report Steps to Solving Inactivity showed the UK’s inactivity rates are among the worst in Europe, with around 30% of adults classed as inactive.

Is message is getting through?
When it comes to explaining how much physical activity is required, it feels complicated. The Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines tell us adults should aim for 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week.

Research has shown even GPs struggle to recall the appropriate dosage of movement needed by their patients. For people who are completely inactive, just the thought of attaching measured requirements to exercise can fill them with dread. On the other hand, we need to know what we’re aiming for; and these guidelines have been judged by leading scientists as the minimum for good health, not the summit.

So what else can be done to get people off the couch? Here are my prescriptions:

• More local authority funding for local physical activity schemes, such as Birmingham’s ‘Be Active’ initiative, where Birmingham City council and three local PCTs work together to increase physical activity in the area by providing free access to public leisure centres, green spaces and structured chronic disease management services. 
• Greater focus on strong evaluation, providing evidence of what works and how this can be rolled out more widely. 
• More action by the government to highlight the dangers of inactivity for health. We’ve done it for smoking, with billboards and posters to tackle the issue, so why not for inactivity? 
• Get activity embedded in our DNA at a young age. Children are now doing less PE now than ever before. Organisations such as ‘Fit For Sport’ that work with schools to provide physical activity programmes are a great example of what can be done.

As individuals we need to ask: are we active enough? We all have a responsibility to take care of our own health. There is a school of thought that says if you’re sitting; stand, if you’re standing; walk, and if you’re walking; jog; if you’re jogging, start trying some box jumps!

Is it simply enough to tell yourself to ‘just do a bit more than you did yesterday?’ Looking at the inactivity figures in this country, I’m inclined to say ‘yes’. Your life depends on it.

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How to tackle childhood obesity

By Amanda Ursell

On holiday in Italy this summer what struck me the most wasn’t the over-sized handbags and under-sized bikinis on the beach, but the size of the children.

While piccola toned mammas promenaded along the sand it was striking just how many weighty children, both young and older, were struggling along behind.

In just one generation traditionally ‘slimmer’ nations such as Italy appear to be catching up with our statistics (one in three children under 15 in the UK is now overweight or obese). Excess snacks and sugar-loaded drinks between albeit homemade (and delicious) meals are some of the main culprits.

These unnecessary calories play a major role in our childhood weight issues in the UK, but we can also factor in over-sized portions at mealtimes, a reliance on takeaways and ready meals and a tendency for parents to reward, cajole, bribe and comfort offspring with treats.

So what can we do, when the food environment and social climate of child-led parenting is everywhere we look?

We can encourage the food industry to maintain its current push to reduce sugar, shrink serving sizes and market healthy choices more positively.

But the bottom line is that as parents and carers we have to take control of the what, when, where and how much we feed our children. We need to set examples of good eating habits ourselves, we need to learn to say ‘no’ and face the tantrums that come with initial refusal to further fuel the over-indulgence line.

This isn’t easy, but then breaking any entrenched behaviour isn’t easy, whether it’s giving up smoking, giving up a friendship that has turned bad or giving up an inactive lifestyle.

As a life coach friend of mine once told me: ‘People can either change their lives and feed their kids better, Amanda… or not.’

Once you own up to and embrace the consequences of the ‘or not’ option, which include being complicit in setting your children up for furred arteries, early onset of type 2 diabetes, fallen foot arches, potentially poor self-esteem in teenage years and adulthood, raised blood pressure and increased risk of stroke, then the short-term aggro and hassle attached to taking action and being the ‘baddie’ for a few months pales into insignificance.

I’m strict with my children. I tried being reasonable, allowing dinner in front of the telly one day a week, having biscuits in the house believing they’d know when enough was enough, taking them shopping with me thinking they wouldn’t try to bludgeon me into falling for the special offer on family-size chocolate bars, but it didn’t work.

They’re kids and I’m the adult and now I behave like one. I plan meals, try to cook them myself (or when there isn’t much time ‘assemble’ them - hummus, pitta, chopped carrots and so on), and I insist on sitting at the table, regardless of what they are doing in the minutes before mealtimes.

They often kick off, they often say I’m mean, they often probably wish I wasn’t so flipping strict, but if I’m not in charge of what my children eat now and don’t try to introduce them to a variety of meals, give them vegetables, feed them fruit and insist on trying things quite a few times before declaring they don’t like them… then who will?

Combine this approach with being active whenever we can and, at the moment at least, I can say my kids are on the right side of the weight line.

Who knows how they’ll live their lives when they’re older? They may decide to feast on burgers and chips for ever, but that will be their decision and by that time hopefully memories of home will prevail and they’ll remember that I did at least try to do my bit and that sometimes mums do know best.

How to cut your risk of type 2 diabetes

By Tracy Kelly, Diabetes UK

Diabetes levels are soaring with no signs of slowing down.

New figures just released by Diabetes UK show that the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK has increased to more than 3.2 million. This is the biggest increase in a single year since 2008, with 163,000 more cases in 2013 than there were in 2012.

These figures demonstrate that the sharp rise of new cases over the last decade shows no signs of slowing down. Even more worrying is that if we continue on this trajectory it is predicted there will be 5 million people affected by diabetes in the UK by 2025.

Type 2 diabetes accounts for most of the increase and one of the main reasons for this is the high obesity rate. Being overweight is a significant risk factor for type 2 diabetes, while other factors include genetics, age and ethnicity. We need more people to be aware of diabetes, more people to know their risk of developing type 2 diabetes and more people being supported to reduce their risk of developing it.

The big increase in the number of people with diabetes confirms that we are in the middle of an unfolding public health disaster  and  it is frightening to think that one in 17 people you walk past in the street has been diagnosed with the condition. This doesn’t include the 630,000 who have diabetes but don’t yet know it. The time to act is now! 

Apart from campaigning for better public awareness, better prevention programmes for type 2 diabetes and better care for everyone with diabetes, we need to address the obesity crisis by making healthy food cheaper and more accessible and by making it easier for people to build physical activity into their daily lives.

We’d really encourage Healthy Food Guide readers to find out more about diabetes by visiting www.diabetes.org.uk. You can also find out your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by taking a quick online risk assessment (www.diabetes.org.uk/risk) or discussing your concerns with your nurse or doctor.  Taking action now could help you to significantly reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

How to tackle obesity head-on

By Melanie Leyshon

25% of adults in the UK are already obese and two-thirds are overweight. Worrying statistics, which, according to Professor David Haslam, National Obesity Forum chair and Healthy Food Guide expert, means we could be facing a ‘doomsday scenario’. At the start of National Obesity Awareness Week (13–19 Jan), David wants to see campaigns for obesity becoming as hard-hitting as those against smoking.

‘There’s a lot more we can be doing by way of earlier intervention and to encourage members of the public to take sensible steps to help themselves,’ says David. ‘But this goes hand in hand with government leadership and ensuring responsible food and drink manufacturing and retailing. We need more proactive engagement by healthcare professionals on weight management, more support and better signposting to services for people who are already obese, and more importance placed on what we drink and how it affects our health.’

To tackle obesity successfully, health experts believe all the elements of the condition must be addressed. One successful scheme has been trialled in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

The town’s weight management programme brought together health authorities and commercial enterprises such as WeightWatchers, with a focus on healthy eating and exercise. Its community approach encouraged overweight people to request a referral to the Rotherham Institute of Obesity from either their GP, nurse, pharmacist or dietitian, or to refer themselves.

Of the patients who completed the six-month weight-loss programme, 93% lost weight and 66% met or did better than their targets. Overall weight-loss results were up to 29% of the original starting weight.

‘It worked because once assessed, patients could see a weight management professional, dietitian, exercise physiologist or talking therapist, or whatever they needed,’ says David. There were three stages to the scheme: stage one identified people at primary care level; stage two was community based, where nutrition and lifestyle and exercise advice was given by trained staff; and stage three looked at specialist interventions, such as bariatric surgery. For children, this included residential weight management camps.

David believes the Rotherham approach is utterly cost effective and should be used across the country. ‘People are sitting in the wrong clinics. They’re in the cardiology clinic and the diabetes clinic or liver clinic, when really they should have started in the obesity clinic so that the problem could really be dealt with.’

‘If you rolled out the Rotherham programme everywhere, it would cost far less than the amount obesity is going to cost us in 25 years’ time, according to Government predictions,’ he says. The programme costs under £1m and if it were rolled out nationally, it would cost around £250m - a small fraction of the bill we will be faced with in 2050 if the obesity crisis continues at its current pace.’

For advice on tackling obesity, check out the National Obesity Awareness Week website www.noaw2014.org.uk/recipes - Healthy Food Guide has a week’s worth of recipes available for you to try.

For more everyday recipes - all 500 kcal or less - get a copy of Healthy Food Guide’s Make it Special 100 Speedy Suppers Recipe Collection (£3.99), out now at branches of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and WH Smith, or download the iPAD edition from iTunes.