United Kingdom
81 Increase exercise by engaging in regular physical activity, with particular
emphasis on parent/child activities and by avoiding prolonged periods of inactivity or sedentary behaviour.
The campaign is focusing primarily on families, with the objective of instigating healthier behaviours amongst their children that will sever them well as they grow up. Within this group, clusters of families have been identified who are most at risk of becoming overweight or obese - families with a lower socio- economic status being one of them. For more information, please visit: http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life.
Scotland
(Extra information was provided by NHS Health Scotland – EuroHealthNet member – and the Scottish Grocers’ Federation)
National Strategy:
In 1994, the Scotland’s Health: A Challenge to Us All – The Scottish Diet was published and it surveyed the Scottish diet, assessed the evidence for the link between diet and health and made proposals for improvement in the Scottish diet.Two years later in 1996, a key policy document: Eating for Health: A Diet Action Plan for Scotland [55], was produced for the development of initiatives to improve the Scottish Diet. This Scottish Diet Action Plan (SDAP) was shaped by the publication in 1994, and it identified practical measures across the food supply chain to support improvement in diet. It also set out dietary targets and a number of recommendations aimed at reducing dietary related morbidity and mortality in Scotland. The key steps of this action plan are targeted on several groups, one of them being low income areas.
‘(...) Help in low income areas, through measures, co-ordinated by a national
project officer funded by The Scottish Office 2, to encourage local initiatives and to improve access to a range of healthy food at reasonable prices.’
These steps are implemented in recommendations 17 and 21:
’Supermarkets should examine, in consultation with the proposed national project
officer, the feasibility of measures, such as free, or low cost, transport, to facilitate access to their stores by low income consumers within the community. They should also consider, with low income communities, the development of alternative ways in which the healthy food products available in supermarkets could be made more readily available to these communities.’
2
The Scottish Office is pre devolution, the Scottish Executive is post devolution and the Scottish Government is the current administration
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‘A national project officer should be appointed under the auspices of the Scottish Consumer Council to promote and focus dietary initiatives within low income communities and to bring these within a strategic framework. Resources should be made available by The Scottish Office to fund this post, to support innovative local projects and to sustain and extend successful, effective initiatives.’
For more information, please visit http://www.healthscotland.com.
In 2003, a wider framework for action to improve the health of people in Scotland was laid out in the Scottish Executive’s 2 Health Improvement paper titled: Improving Health in Scotland – The Challenge (2003). This framework supported the processes required to speed up the progress of health improvement and highlighted further actions. [56].
One of the ‘challenges’ that this document summarises is the high levels of inequality in health outcomes for different socio-economic groups (for example in terms of life expectancy, rate of Coronary Heart Disease). It also emphasises the importance of following through with action by the Scottish Executive to improve life circumstances in communities by continuing tackling low income and poverty, as this will have an important impact on health. And thus one of the key conceptual stages in the next phase of work will be: ‘to increase access to
healthier food choices, particularly in low income and rural areas’.
In the same year, the Scottish national strategy for physical activity Let’s make Scotland more active – was launched. It is a long term action plan (until 2022) and endorses international recommendations for the quantity and quality of physical activity required for a health benefit [57].
During 2008 the strategy was reviewed. The results of the review found no evidence to suggest that the strategy should be substantially revised and that it remains in line with physical activity guidelines issued by WHO and the EU.
2
The Scottish Office is pre devolution, the Scottish Executive is post devolution and the Scottish Government is the current administration
However the review did highlight a number of key areas where action can be strengthened.
The strategy mentions health inequalities in its background information, and the difficulties one can face if the aim is to increase physical activity among the lower socio-economic communities.
‘Within this general picture of inactivity is a major issue of health inequality. The
proportion of sedentary adults (doing 30 minutes or less of physical activity on one day a week or not at all) in the lowest socio-economic groups is double that among those from the highest socio-economic groups.’
A number of initiatives focus on areas of high deprivation, disadvantaged and hard to reach groups.
1. Paths to Health The project is a leading delivery agent for the Physical Activity Strategy. Its aim is to develop local walking schemes. Over 200 community based schemes have been supported, over two thirds of which are in deprived areas, with 1,700 Walk Leaders trained to lead walks in communities and up to 20,000 people participating in led walks every week.
2. Jogscotland The focus is to develop jogging groups in three key settings:
workplaces, communities and schools/young people focusing on disadvantaged areas where possible. It has over 13,500 members in 300 groups in local communities and in workplaces.
3. Junior jogscotland programme now has over 800 Primary Schools and Youth Groups around the country already with Junior jogscotland resource packs and hundreds of children already taking part in the games based activity programme.
4. Girls on the Move aims to increase the physical activity levels of girls and
young women. This initiative is a community based programme that promotes physical activity through participation and leadership programmes and focuses on girls and young women from hard to reach groups.
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