Evidence for Local Authority Policies to Prevent Childhood Obesity

The fellowship will support and enable the fellow to develop and undertake a programme of high-quality research to inform UK policy to prevent childhood obesity during and after the fellowship. It will enable his development and that of his team.
Childhood obesity is a significant and challenging public health issue, with one in five children aged 10-11 in England affected. This prevalence is higher than in many Western countries and continues to rise, disproportionately impacting children living in poorer areas. Obesity negatively effects health and social outcomes in childhood and into adult life. Obesity costs the UK society around 3% of GDP. Childhood, particularly the first 1000 days and adolescence, offer important windows for intervention and the adoption of lifelong healthy behaviours.
Building on work in the first phase of the fellowship, the research in the next phase will strengthen the evidence base for effective local action, particularly regulatory, fiscal and legal approaches. Local authorities possess unique levers to influence the environments that shape children's eating and physical activity. However, the evidence base supporting local interventions, particularly ‘hard’ policy levers like financial, regulatory, and legal measures, is underdeveloped.
The research aims are threefold:
1.     To identify novel opportunities for local authority interventions. This will explore financial, regulatory, and legal approaches to promoting healthy eating and activity; and understand barriers to implementation.
2.     To develop a new UK child obesity-health model to quantify the short-term (within 3-5 years) health impacts of childhood obesity interventions.
3.     To use this model to simulate the impact of both existing and novel local policies, assessing their potential to improve children’s health and reduce health inequalities.
The project will employ a mixed-methods approach. Project 1 will...