New strategy aims to improve physical health

Published Tuesday 5 July 2016 at 11:08

A three-year strategy being developed by Blackburn with Darwen Council to encourage residents to move more, eat well and maintain a healthy weight is now out for public consultation.

The ‘Eat Well, Shape Up, Move More Strategy 2016-19’ aims to encourage positive lifestyle changes that enable local people to improve their health and wellbeing by supporting an environment where physical activity and healthy eating is the easy choice for everyone throughout their lives.

A group of local GPs and practice nurses were invited to hear more about the strategy last week and a public consultation is now running on what members of the public think should be the priorities within it.

Have your say in the public consultation via: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/eatwellmovemoreshapeup

 Councillor Mustafa Desai, Executive Member for Health and Adult Social Care, said:

Tackling weight issues among our population is a key priority. One of our biggest challenges is to try to control the known social risks that generate obesity in the first place. This strategy is therefore a very important one for the future health of all of our residents.  With the Council continuing to face unprecedented cuts to its budget, prevention and early intervention strategies, such as this, are even more vital to ensure we can provide cost-effective services to improve our residents’ health and wellbeing.

Dr Chris Clayton, Clinical Chief Officer at NHS Blackburn with Darwen Clinical Commissioning Group, said:

It’s very important that we tackle obesity because, as well as causing obvious physical changes, it can lead to a number of serious and potentially life-threatening conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke. We are doing well at tackling the problem which is particularly important in Blackburn with Darwen given that we have the highest number of young people in Europe.  It helps though that we have good partnership working with the Council and that historic strategic plans have paved the way.

 

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