In 2023 the Chief Executive of the British Heart Foundation warned the Government not to put the brakes on its anti-obesity policies, adding that the resulting heart and circulatory disease would cost the economy £58m per year. Charmaine Griffiths said that after a flurry of early activity, a ‘bold strategy’ to address obesity was now…
Tag: Maternal health
Time for change: the NHS needs to take better care of ethnic minority mums and babies
There has long been evidence of the stark health inequalities faced by ethnic minority people in England and elsewhere. Despite this, there has been no significant change. One major area of concern is around pregnant and new mothers, in particular where discriminatory or racist treatment can affect their mental and physical health as well as…
Off the scales: time to act on childhood obesity
By 2050, it is said that obesity could cost the NHS almost £10 billion a year, with the full economic cost rising from around £27 billion today to £50 billion by then. Today, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) publishes its report, Off the scales: time to act on childhood obesity. It calls on the…
An equal start: longitudinal evidence to support children’s healthy development
Using longitudinal evidence to support children’s healthy development and give them an equal start in life is the subject of our editor Yvonne Kelly’s keynote address at the Growing up in Ireland Annual Conference in Dublin today. Her talk discusses findings from the most recent of the British ‘birth ‘ cohort studies – the Millennium…
Putting a SPRING in the step of mums-to-be
Making sure that mums-to-be are in the best possible health is key to ensuring their baby gets the best possible start in life. But what sorts of things can help them achieve that? In this episode of the Child of our Time Podcast, Professor Hazel Inskip from the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit at the University of Southampton,…
Sugar-coating the childhood obesity problem
Child obesity figures appear to be on the rise again, causing much concern after earlier signs they had levelled off. The proportion of 10- and 11-year-olds who were obese in 2015-16 was 19.8 percent, up 0.7 percent on the year before. There was a rise of 0.2 percent among four- and five-year-olds. The announcement comes as researchers at the ESRC International Centre for…
BMI development and early adolescent psychosocial well-being
Research looking at how and when children become overweight is helping to shed new light on ongoing efforts by the Government and others to tackle the childhood obesity epidemic. A team of researchers at the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL has also been asking whether children who are overweight are more likely to go…
Girls growing up – questions of early puberty
The early onset of puberty in girls has been linked with better bone health in older women, but it is also associated with a host of negative outcomes including teenage pregnancy and serious ill health in mid-life. With girls over the last few decades starting their periods earlier and earlier, this is a real cause…
Born in Bradford
Born in Bradford is a fascinating child health development project following the lives of thousands of children in the city. It hopes to find out more about the causes of childhood illness by studying children from all cultures and backgrounds as their lives unfold. In this Child of our Time Podcast episode, one of the project’s lead researchers,…
Giving children a better start
Child of our Time Editor, Yvonne Kelly will today be discussing why poorer children are more likely to be obese than their better off peers at a Big Lottery Fund event looking at how to give young children a better start in life. She will be sharing recent research from the team at the ESRC International…