Impact of UK Government Strategies on Childhood Obesity in London

This dissertation investigates the impact of government strategies on childhood obesity in London. It begins by defining childhood obesity and highlighting its prevalence in the UK, particularly in London. The research explores the rationale for studying this issue, emphasizing the global health concern and the need for preventive measures. The study aims to determine the prevalence of childhood obesity, identify government policies, and assess their impacts. The literature review discusses the search strategy, including keywords, Boolean operators, and databases used to gather relevant articles. The findings from the literature review are then presented, followed by a discussion and conclusion summarizing the research and its implications. The dissertation highlights the role of the Body Mass Index (BMI) in measuring obesity, the impact of fast-food businesses, and policies implemented to combat childhood obesity. The study also touches upon the determinants of childhood obesity, such as genetics and birth weight, and the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in addressing this global issue.

Running head: DISSERTATION
Impact of government strategies in
tackling childhood obesity in London
Name of the Student
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Abstract
Childhood obesity has emerged as one of the biggest health issues prevailing in the UK and
worldwidglobally, and in the UKe. The articles reviewed in this research study have shown that
there is a demand for enhancing increasing the awareness of the parents regarding on childhood
obesity, the risk factors and its health consequences is essential. It has been identified that in spite
of taking so manyimplementing several initiatives, the government lacks in taking alladoption of a
comprehensive around approach to tacklein managing childhood obesity. A positive relationship
between law government laws and food consumptionculture has been identified. Reviewing the
existing literature has helped the researcher in conducting aThe narrative literature review and pay
an in depth focus on analyseding the facts and evidences collected by the previous authors in similar
area or research topic(s). Apt An appropriate literature search strategy has helped in collecting some
of the most relevant articles from recent times, which in turn, helped in makingmade the study
credible and reliable.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction............................................................................................................3
Chapter 2: Research background, context and rationale..........................................................4
Research aim....................................................................................................................5
Research objective............................................................................................................5
Chapter 3: Literature Search Strategy-.....................................................................................6
Chapter 4-Main Findings from the Literature Reviewed.......................................................14
Chapter 5- Discussion & Conclusion.....................................................................................18
Discussion......................................................................................................................18
Conclusion......................................................................................................................20
References..............................................................................................................................22
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Chapter 1: Introduction
The concept ofterm childhood obesity can be defined as the situation or condition where
excess body fat becomes a major role in negatively affectingnegatively affects the development,
well-being and health of childrena child. The most appropriate technique which is basically used for
the purpose of determining, calculating and measuring the actual volume of fat present in the body
is called as Body Mass Index (BMI) (WHO, 2018). The BMI, or body mass index also known as
quetelet index has its mainplays a major role in developing a correlation between the mass weight
and height of an individual, to identify whether the person is obese or notpresence of obesity in a
person. Body mass index (BMI) has been considered as an important become a major tool,
commonly which is used by organisations and government authorities, for the purpose of
identifying the obesity levels majorly foramong children, belonging toranging between the age
group of 2 years and above. In recent times, it has been noticed that the concept of childhood
obesity has evolved itself to become of as one of the key national issues in countries such as, the
UK and the USA. PThe public health departments of various countries around the world are
working hard in order to reduce the problem of obesity among children, between the age group of 2-
10 years. There areChildhood obesity creates various effects that are usually borne by children due
to obesity such as on the physical, long-termmental and psychological outcomes of the children, in
the long run (Foundation, 2018). Physical effects of obesity among children could lead to heart
diseases, cancer and diabetes etc. Long-term effects of childhood obesity significantly impact their
adult life in the form of type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, cancer etc. FinallyIn addition, psychological
impacts of obesity can lead to the development of various situations such as, bullying,
discrimination and harassment in their entire life.
Similarly, theThe issue of childhood obesity has been categorised as one of the primary
healthcare issues of the country. As per the reports of the Telegraph, it has been noticed that one
among five primary school children has been sufferingsuffer from the issue of childhood obesity.
The statistical data of 2016/17, published by NHS clearly highlights that around 9.6% of children
have been measured overweight, by the time they have enrolledenroll themselves in the school.
Childhood obesity in the UK is increasing at an alarming speed, which is developingthereby
creating a panic situation in the country, by severely impacting affecting children belonging to
afrom deprived socio-economic background and disadvantageous family situation (Donnelly,
2017). The obesity rate ofrates of obesity in the UK clearly highlights that London is the
frontrunner in terms of maximum number of obese children, as compared to other cities in the
country. According to an article published in the UK, it has been observed that the rate of obesity in
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the city of London is higher as compared to other parts of the nation. The primary reason behind the
rise of obesity among children is mostly due to the presence ofprevalence of fast food businesses in
the country (CRERAR, 2015). The Labour mayoral candidate of UK, Mr Sadiq Khan has taken a
bold decision in order to minimise the frequency of obesity among children. Khan has introduced
health practices, which would restrict fast food outlets to set up their stores within 400 metres of the
school.
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Chapter 2: Research background, context and rationale
Over the years, Cchildhood obesity from the past has gained huge noticeimportance,
especially in the European and American countries, owing to largely to their diet and lifestyle
patterns. This has lead significantly led the development of various researchers which arestudies,
undertaken by authors all over the world, in order to identify and develop strategies to overcome the
issue of childhood obesity. SM (2015) has significantly focused on conducting an analysis of the
determinants that leads to the occurrence of obesity and children, globally (Mohamed, 2015). The
few of the Some of the major determinants of child obesity are genetics, birth weight, and age and
gender. The occurrence of obesity among children can arise from family genetics, if the when the
BMI of the mother and the father are overweightindicates them to be overweight. The aspect of fat
mass and obesity associated genes, present within the child can surely result in rising in weight
increase. The bBirth weight determinant is also a majoranother factor that leads to gain of weight, in
the future. The rapid increase in the weight of low weight infants should be considered as an
alarming factor for obesity in futureas there is a high chance of being obese in the future. The
impact of childhood obesity has also forced the World Health Organisation (WHO) to develop
appropriate norms and policies, which are required to be followed by countries, in order to control
childhood obesity. The statistical report of WHO clearly shows that the number associated with
childhood obesity has massively increased from 32 million globally in 1990, to 41 million children
in the year 2016 (WHO, 2018). World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that the majority of
cases of childhood obesity are generally from the African region. The increase of obese children in
the African region has risen from 4 million in 1990 to 9 million in 2016. The rate of childhood
obesity is recorded to be high in developing countries, as compared to developed nations. However,
there is no denying but that does not deny the fact that developed countries such as the UK, the
USA and Canada are taking immense several steps, by introducing new policies and regulations, to
prevent further rise of childhood obesity in their respective countries.
The rationale for conducting the research on childhood obesity is largely due to thecan be
based on the fact that this issue is one of the hot topics in the a global health concern, world and
also one of the most serious issues prevailing in the healthcare department of theacross all
developed and developing countries. The conductance ofConducting an analysis on the issue of
childhood obesity would allow the readers to acquire an in-depth and accurate knowledge
understanding ofn the impact and causes that lead to the process of gaining excessive weight
gaining, among children ranging between the age group of 2-7 years (Kuhle et al., 2015). This study
would also look to discussillustrate the views of global authors and scholars who have been
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working for a very long time, in the past on the development of preventive measures to combat the
issue of childhood obesity. Furthermore, the completion of this dissertation, followed by
dissemination of its findings would also assist readers to identify various governmental strategies,
that are undertaken by the UK government as well asand their its impacts on the childhood obesity
in the country.
Research aim
The aim of this research is to investigate the impacts of government policies, formulated in
the UK, on rates of childhood obesity in the nation.
Research objective
The research objectives are given below:
 To determine the prevalence of childhood obesity among children, aged 2-10 years,
in the UK.
 To identify efforts taken by the government in formulating legislation and policies
for reducing childhood obesity rates
 To explore the impacts of the identified policies on the target population
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Chapter 3: Literature Search Strategy-
Search strategy could beis defined as a process of answering questions “where to go” and;
“how to go there”; etc. (Chakrabarti and Blessing, 2014). Search strategies refer to the organised
structure of major search terms that are used for exploring a database, with the aim of extracting
relevant articles.To review literature the foremost step is perhaps to select it throughSelecting
various, appropriate, means, that which not only help to make the entire study relevant but also
helps to add value to itforms the foremost step of conducting a literature review. Adopting and
implementing right strategy Ffor studies which are solelythat are based on secondary information
are extremely, adopting and implementing right strategy becomes highly significant. A good
literature search could lead to the following benefits:
 Synthesizing information from various sources,- mostly from previously conducted studies,-
which could enable in making thewould enable formulating the research background, and
topic justification, etc. stringer
 Providing valuable insight into the data, thereby helping to make the study better
 Finding potential gaps, (if any), existing in the literature
 Getting familiarized with the terms, and sentences that are, etc. necessary for finding
information, etc.
Some of the basic ways of searching relevant information for reviewing a literature include:
 Possible keywords
 Following citations
 Potential phrases
 Boolean operators
 Wildcard variations
 Subject headings, etc.
Since, the topic of the present study focused mainly on the governmental strategies to reduce
childhood intensity obesity in London (especially among the school going children), it was essential
to not just pay attention on the strategies being adopted by theways the UK government, for is
working towards addressing the issue, in addition to but also looking into the matter deeply by
focusing on the issue ofgaining a deeper understanding of childhood obesity, specifically among the
school going childrenin the target population, its underlying causes behind the issues, prevailin
governmentg policies and strategies, and their effectiveness. Hence, to proceed with the literature
review it was essential tothere was a need to take into consideration a wide range of key terms and
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Govt .poli
cies
Childhood
Obesity
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their combinations. As stated by Robson and McCartan, (2016) stated that, key words often play
significant role in retrieving relevant results articles from the databases. Therefore, using targeted
keywords was taken into consideration by the researcherwere used for the present study. Since
different concepts can be expressed differently, while using key terms, it was necessary for the
researcher to have to have a sound understanding awareness of the alternatives of the exact terms,
that were required to retrieve information. The for which using online as well asand offline
dictionary proved helpful for the same. Apart from thisIn addition, the topic of the the research
questions was broken fragmented into main several concepts, which in turn proved helpful for the
researcher to findfor finding synonyms and alternative phrasings for each of them. Hence, for the
present study, the key words phrases that were focused onused included “child health”,; “obesity”,;
“child obesity”,; “national measures for child obesity”,; and “child obesity prevalence”; etc.
Using truncation orTruncations wildcard variations were also used also proved to be helpful
for the present study. However, while using this strategy, the researcher took special care was taken
whilein paying attention towards certain facts like root words, which tended to havehad multiple
endings like “obese”,= “obesity”,; “obsessed”, “obeseness”,; and “obesely”; etc. using Wwildcard
variations helped in retrieving possible search results via using symbols like ‘!’, ‘?’, or ‘#’. This
mostly helped in retrievinggetting all possible results of even those words that were even spelled
differently., for e.g. theThe use of “government polic#s to fight childhood obesity in London”
helped to displaydisplayed results including “government policies (and also policy) to fight
childhood obesity in London”. On the other hand, while using truncation, specifically in PubMed,
the researcher had to use the method of “end- truncation” was used that focused onby using an
asterisk (*) with terms like such as, “child*”; “obesity*”, and; “health*”; etc. to get theThis
facilitated extracting most relevant information on the research topic (National Library of Medicine,
2016).
Boolean operators such as, AND, OR, and NOT were also used by the researcher for
searching the literature via using AND, OR & NOT, as itand helped in trying combinations
ofcombining the different search terms like “children AND obesity” and; “government policies
AND childhood obesity”; etc. Using ‘AND’ enabled the researcher to narrow down the search and
get information on both childhood obesity as well as government policies,; children and obesity;
etc.
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Govt .policiesChildhood Obesity
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On the other hand, using ‘OR’ had widened up the searchbroadened the search hits by
including all the possible search results that involved childhood obesity,; and government policies
towards it; etc.
Furthermore, while using PubMed database, attention was given on using the Boolean
operators in capital letters. Another easier strategy that was followed by the researcher was to
review the reference lists and bibliography of the potential journals. This process made
speedspeeded up the process if searching literature searching and enabled in retrievingretrieved
similar and relevant studies. For searching the cited references, Google Scholar was used for
searching the references that were cited in the articles by the researcher along with searching
PubMed, since the database often contain “links to the full-text article on the publishers or ' Web
sites”.
Some of the databases which were used for searching the literature for the present study
included PubMed, BMJ, and; NCBI; etc. One of the significant reasons behind for using these
databases was that can be attributed to the fact that these were subject specific databases and helped
in retrieving peer reviewed journals, on the research topic.
One of the main criteria that were taken into consideration while retrieving articles from
these databases was the language. Articles which were only in English language were included in
the study. Apart from this, before considering an entire article to be relevant, its abstract was gone
through along with reviewing its completeness.
Table 1: BMJ searches to identify potential relevant data
Source: Self
Search Terms Relevant Articles
Retrieved
(In 1st page)
Child obesity in London 3
Obesity among school going kids in London 2
Government policies for child obesity in UK 2
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Child obesity in UK “AND” government policies 10
Table 2: BMJ searches to identify potential relevant data
Table 3: PubMed searches to identify potential relevant data
Source: Self
Search Terms Relevant Articles Retrieved
(In 1st page)
Child obesity AND UK 6
Child obesity in UK “AND” government
policies
20
Table 4: PubMed searches to identify potential relevant data
Source: Self
One of the main major significances of using PubMed was that it helped in retrieving
subject specific information, which in turn helped the researcher to speed up the entire process of
literature search. Furthermore, PubMedit is government sponsored database, maintained by the
National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and has free access to relevant significant
full- text journals. PubMed (NCBI) also ensures to retrievehelped in retrieving peer reviewed those
journals which are peer reviewed and itsbased on their authenticity and is monitored and or
maintained by the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee (LSTRC) (National Library of
Medicine, 2017). BMJ Oon the other hand, BMJ helped the researchers to search for the
literaturearticles that were based on childhood obesity in London, and government strategies
strategies. BMJ also provided to address the issue along with having open access to the articles.
Moreover, by using this databaseuse of this database made, it became easier for the researcher to get
access to the latest “evidence based information”. Apart from thisIn addition, the strategy of using
key terms such as, ‘child obesity in UK’ and ‘child obesity in London’ proved useful in extracting
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articles from the Cochrane database. further proved to be fruitful for the researcher by using key
terms/ title like “Child Obesity in UK”; “Child Obesity in London”;
Table 5: Cochrane searches to identify potential relevant data
Source: Self
Search Terms Results Retrieved
Child Obesity in UK 1
Child Obesity in London 8
Obesity (MeSH Search) 25
Table 6: Cochrane searches to identify potential relevant data
To search of the literature on the present topic, focus has also been given on using MeSH
(Medical Subject Headings) terms were also used for the literature review. MeSH terms could beare
defined as “comprehensive and controlled vocabulary, used for the purpose of indexing journal
articles and books in theon life sciences” and . The terms assisted in the process of has helped in
narrowing down the search, by focusing mainly on “’obesity”’ and potential related information
around it, which also included information on paediatric obesity, childhood obesity, and teenage
obesity, etc.
Fig 1: MeSH trees of "Obesity"
Source: (Cochrane Library, 2018)
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