Contents

Priority: Obesity

The specific focus is on:

  • Make Bexley a place where is easy to be a healthy weight
  • Quality services for residents if and when they need them
     

Key strategic actions under this priority are:

  • Increase the availability of healthier and affordable food - work with partners in Bexley to ensure that the healthy food choice is the easy choice.
  • Create an environment that inspires physical activity - use good urban design principles to make Bexley a place that encourages physical activity by creating healthy streets, improving access to and between green and blue spaces, and enhancing walking and cycling networks.
  • Recognise the links between obesity and mental health - ensure that people with poor mental health can access support on obesity equitably and that professionals are trained to help or signpost residents into mental health support.
  • Support a healthy lifestyle through good livelihoods - ensure that residents have the capability and knowledge of how to prepare healthy and affordable food.
  • Equip the workforce to contribute to the obesity agenda - professionals across Bexley have the skill to raise the issue of weight and provide information about where residents can get support to achieve a healthy weight.
  • Provide quality services that support weight management - ensure that there are a range of evidence-based options available for residents to achieve a healthy weight, with a particular focus on areas with the highest level of need in the borough, to reduce health inequalities.
  • Embed healthy lifestyles across the agenda - work with partners such as schools, businesses, and workplaces to promote healthy behaviour across their organisations.
  • Communicate core and targeted lifestyles messages - engage residents in health promoting messages and ensure that they reflect Bexley’s communities.

Obesity is a significant complex health issue and one of the biggest health challenges in Bexley. Bexley has among the highest rates of obesity in London across all age ranges.1 There are key health inequalities in Bexley related to obesity, with the highest prevalence mainly in more deprived areas in the north, and rates vary significantly by ethnicity. In Bexley one in six children who enter primary school not overweight leave primary school overweight, increasing from almost one in four to over one in three.2

Obesity has huge health, social and economic impacts. People living with obesity have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, some cancers, poorer mental health and wellbeing, cardiovascular disease, and have shorter life expectancy, with childhood obesity shown to track into adulthood.3 The national economic costs of obesity are significant - £27 billion in total.4 People who are obese have a shorter life expectancy, are less likely to be employed, and are much higher users of social care and health services.5 People who are obese may also face discrimination and stigmatisation.6

Traditionally efforts to reduce obesity have focused primarily on the individual, however, research shows that in modern Britain we live in an environment where it is easier to be an unhealthy weight than a healthy weight.7 The environment around us - such as the number of fast-food restaurants, access to green spaces, and exposure to advertising - impacts on our weight as well as lifestyle choices individuals make. Obesity is a complex issue that requires action at a wider societal level as well as on an individual level.8 Bexley’s Obesity Strategy (2020-25) sets out actions to reduce obesity in Bexley aimed at individuals and society with a focus on reducing inequalities and commits to take a whole-systems approach to reducing obesity.

  1. Obesity Profile - OHID
  2. Ibid.
  3. Health matters: obesity and the food environment - GOV.UK
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Association between perceived weight discrimination and physical activity: a population-based study among English middle-aged and older adults | BMJ Open
  7. Reducing obesity: future choices - GOV.UK
  8. Whole systems approach to obesity: A guide to support local approaches