New services in Lincolnshire for children and families to tackle childhood obesity

During National Childhood Obesity Week (4-10 July), a new package of support services for children, young people and their families has been announced for Lincolnshire to provide fun, physical activities and encourage healthy diet and lifestyles.

Lincolnshire County Council has committed £674,000 for the new Child and Family Weight Management Service over the next two years to tackle childhood obesity. It will be provided by One You Lincolnshire, building on their current integrated lifestyle service for the county.

Councillor Wendy Bowkett, Executive Councillor for Public Health, explained: “We know there has been a rise in childhood obesity levels across the nation and don’t expect Lincolnshire to have been any different – it was clear during the pandemic and beyond, children couldn’t move around and exercise as much as they would normally do. We’re determined to do something about it.

“These new services will provide more targeted interventions around weight management and healthy lifestyles to support children and their families to be able to help themselves to keep fit, eat well and stay healthy. At the end of their programmes family members will be able to see and measure how the activities have made a difference and be encouraged to keep up their healthier lifestyles.”

Councillor Patricia Bradwell, Executive Councillor for Children’s Services, added: “This is about children enjoying fun, group-based physical activities with their parents, brothers and sisters over a number of weeks, such as dodgeball, trampolining and much more. Parents can get support and advice about the importance of physical activity and healthy lifestyles, including nutrition and portion control through food tasting sessions.

“We want to motivate, enable and support children to reduce their weight and help families to make long-term changes to their diet, physical activity levels and emotional wellbeing. It’s important to ensure activities will be accessible and affordable to families when their participation programmes end.”

Dedicated support for eligible families will give them the opportunity to attend weight loss or healthy lifestyle group programmes for their children, all in their communities over a number of weeks. This includes:

• fun 60-minute physical activity sessions for children each week
• weekly parent and carer healthy lifestyle sessions to support parents to empower their child make positive changes
• 1-2-1 tailored support, outside the weekly sessions, from the Energy team
• resources available to motivate and guide parents and their children to make changes, including recipe ideas and much more.

The service will be county-wide but with particular emphasis towards areas with the highest levels of deprivation or childhood obesity.