Obesity has now been acknowledged to be one of the most serious public health problems facing the UK. In the report Securing Good Health for the whole population, (Wanless, 2004) it was recognised obesity could be equal in importance to smoking as a determinant of future health.
The House of Commons Select Committee Report on Obesity (House of Commons, May 2004) described the culture and environment of 21st century Britain as ‘obesogenic’ and stated fundamental change needs to be made to lifestyles and environment to slow or reverse the trend.
Obesity is a difficult issue to tackle and coordinated action is required at national, county and local level. To address this epidemic needs partnership with a range of agencies to support people to be more active and have a more healthy diet.
Kent and Medway have both produced plans to tackle this issue. For Medway’s strategy go to:
and for Kent's plan, go to the Kent Obesity Strategy (2008) and the Kent Healthy Weight Strategy (2010)
