Every child a healthy weight

In brief

This report is written in response to the Mayor of London’s request to the London Child Obesity Taskforce to identify what actions are needed for London’s children to be a healthy weight.

Executive summary

As a Taskforce, we identified three things needed to step-change the important work already going on:

Place children at the centre

Actions, however well meaning, will address inequity only if they are based on an understanding of the realities of the lives of London’s children and their families – and seek to provide support, rather than stigma and blame. If we are going to fix the system, we need to understand how children experience it on the inside. This is why our first action as a taskforce was to develop some profiles of London’s children. Engaging children, especially those living in poverty, in co-designing solutions also has potential to make action more effective and equitable.

Take a whole-systems approach

There is a lot going on across London, but much needs to be done to truly change the whole system around children’s lives. Actions are needed at multiple levels working together and reinforcing each other to reshape what children eat and drink and the activity they do. This means connecting existing actions to create greater consistency and coherence throughout children’s lives, and identifying actions with ripple effects that will enable the system to change. A systems approach also means dispersing leadership throughout the system, so everyone is taking responsibility for action towards shared ambitions.

Get bigger and bolder

Many of the positive initiatives to date have been small scale, short term and patchy. We want to see promising work scaled up and extended, minimum standards set across London, capacity built where it is lacking, and new, powerful actions trialled and implemented.