Lessons from an unsuccessful local attempt to tackle childhood overweight and obesity

While we greatly enjoyed Mary C J Rudolph’s “Best Practice” article on “The Obese Child”,1 we cannot agree with her conclusion that obesity fulfils most of the criteria for a condition that justifies screening. Our own local experience in Solihull, West Midlands, might illustrate this point.

Using a grant from the Children’s Fund (www.cypu.gov.uk/corporate/childrenstrust/index,cfm) we aimed to set up a “Fit Club” serving children aged 7–11 in seven wards in Solihull, with DETRI deprivation indices ranging from 7.53 to 54.49. All seven wards contain enumeration districts with deprivation indices in the worse 15% of the country.

We attempted to recruit 20 children, for an initial consultation phase, in …