>>Julie Greenway: The unwarranted variation we identified was that levels of childhood
overweight and obesity were higher in Dudley than the national average; so, whereas the
national average for reception age children is 22.6% of the population in Dudley that
figure rose to 27.1%. The children in year 6 the figures showed a similar pattern with
the national average being at 34.2% of children are overweight and obese, but in Dudley our
figures were around 39.1%. >>Claire Newill: Some work had been done around
let’s get kids fit and healthy eating and then we realised if we did not start young
we were missing an opportunity. The let’s get kids fit course took place
and ran for 6 weeks and was run in local children centres and the course was made up of about
three quarters of an hour where we did basic cooking skills and then the other three quarters
of the hour we looked at nutrition and physical activity.
A lot of the research says that when mums have babies they are more susceptible to research
and information about feeding a baby so it seemed an ideal time to start setting up some
groups that involved first time parents and their new babies.
>>Wendy Parsons: Baby steps came about simply because we wanted to get messages across that
were in a group and because continuous support for parents.
Before we implemented our change we found that parents lacked knowledge around nutrition
around basic cooking skills and around physical activity levels for their children; so we
carried out a literature review on the topic of childhood obesity and we found the research
showed that in order to successfully address the issue we had to address commonly held
parental beliefs which are firstly that babies cannot be overfed on milk, secondly that crying
always signals hunger and thirdly that your growth is determined by genes rather than
by nutrition. First thing we had to do was think about the
content think about what we wanted to get across to parents and we wanted to incorporate
the previous information that we had from the Let’s et kids fit
>>Laura Glazzard: We talk about nutrition for the whole family and exercise, we talk
about the introduction of solids for babies from six months, we look at baby massage and
the importance of touch; we also look at play and development and sleep routines.
>>Rebecca: It’s been really useful mainly to just be able to talk to different mums
and dads in the group and share different experiences and if I have had any questions,
I kind of keep them in my mind and then wait for the group and then kind of ask around
including the two health workers; they were fantastic
>>Damian: Yeah, we’ve found it quite good ain’t we? It’s been quite informative
we’ve quite enjoyed it. >>Dani: It’s been nice to meet other people
with children of the same kind of age going through the same issues. Which has been the
most helpful thing really, hasn’t it? >>Damian: Yeah, it has yeah.
>>Julie Greenway: We did a questionnaire and a focus group at the beginning of the course
and a questionnaire and a focus group at the end of the course. The results show that the
course as effective in changing mothers’ attitudes around each of the three key beliefs,
particularly the one that babies cannot be over fed on milk, in fact, the results changed
from over 47%of mothers believing that at the believing that at the beginning to only
8% at the end and whilst our numbers were small and it is too early to see if it has
had a significant impact on the levels of childhood overweight and obesity it was encouraging
that our results showed a significant change in mothers’ beliefs in each of the areas.
The course also demonstrated that running it was a good use of resources because obese
children have an increased risk of becoming obese adults with all the associated costs
with that. I think our work demonstrates commitment to
the first three of the leading change adding value commitments which are around improving
population health more work around prevention, and also around giving individuals, families
and communities evidence based information so they can make choices to improve their
own health.