New campaign to help adults lose their spare tyres

Scales

Change4Life isn’t just about getting kids healthy- ‘Change4Life just for me’ has been launched with 45 to 65 year olds in mind.

This follows new evidence, published by the National Heart Forum, which predicts a near 100 per cent rise in diabetes by 2050 unless we take action now.

This independent report states that rising adult obesity will see significant increases in diseases like diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension and stroke. Losing weight, improving your diet and increasing the amount of activity you do can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by more than 50 per cent.

The next phase of the campaign urges adults to ‘Swap it Don’t Stop it’ – giving people tips on how to lose weight and feel healthy without giving up all the things they love. There are a series of suggested ‘swaps’ – including swapping watching a favourite sport on television for taking part, increasing fibre intake by choosing brown rice over white, or simply swapping bigger plates for smaller ones to choose smaller portions of food.

Wendy Meston, Consultant in Public Health at NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale, commented: “The Swap it, Don’t Stop it campaign is another way to encourage us all to make a series of small changes that can make a difference to our health and weight. Only 10% of adults in the borough are physically active enough and only 19.5% eat healthily. This has a significant impact on the number of adults who have health and weight problems. Currently more than 26% of adults are obese but as we have begun to see with children, we can change this.”

NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale provides a number of services to help people to manage their weight.

For more information visit:

• www.doyoufeelgood.org 

One million mums say their families are eating better and being more active, and people are making positive changes to their shopping habits, thanks to Change4Life. This new data comes as the Government’s healthy living movement celebrates its first year of activity today. Change4Life is an innovative, interactive healthy living campaign. It helps families to achieve and maintain a healthier lifestyle by promoting healthy habits that encourage them to eat well, move more and live longer. The movement is already showing good progress in changing harmful behaviours which can lead to people becoming overweight or obese:

• One million mums claim to have attempted to change their children’s behaviour as a result of Change4Life.
• Latest data show that obesity prevalence in children is levelling out. An early analysis of people’s shopping baskets suggests that families who signed up to Change4Life are now more likely to chose low fat milks and low sugar drinks.
• For every pound spent on the campaign, three pounds are spent by partners such as Tesco and Asda to build momentum.