At commissioner's request
Rates of obesity have dramatically increased over the last decade and 1 in 3 children aged 11 years in England are overweight or obese. The prevention of unhealthy weight, identification and signposting to relevant services for those of unhealthy weight is high priority as set out in Healthy Lives, Healthy People, 2010.
Information about children’s weight is provided to parents via the National Child Measurement programme, this is one step toward getting information to parents – but our research shows that professionals (health and non-health) who work with children and families are not fully aware of relevance and interpretation of the body mass index in children. In addition they are not equipped to raise this sensitive issue with families and unable to carry out focussed brief intervention advice within their busy working schedules as making sense of the plethora of information and guidelines in the public domain is a burdensome task.
Our competency based programme can enable a wide public health workforce including front line staff and managers to address the causes of unhealthy weight and hence avert the associated medical and psychosocial consequences which affect those most vulnerable in our communities.
Addressing obesity requires a multi-faceted approach well grounded in theory with a multidisciplinary approach including public health in its widest definition: psychology, physiology, and organisational behaviour. The CHALK programme responds to the post Marmot review recommendations for a ‘Fair society’ with capacity building and access for the most vulnerable a key focus of the programme.
CHALK comprises:
- bespoke capacity building training and mentoring for those working with children and families across the public, private and third sector
- community based interventions targeted at children and families