About the Hub

The Healthy Weight for Children Hub is part of a larger programme of work, 'Targeted Interventions for Child Weight Management', which was set up in response to the increasing numbers of overweight and obese children in the South West region. This overarching programme is managed by the Government Office for the South West and funded by the Chief Medical Officer.

Recent research from the Foresight programme has shown that modern lifestyles are a fundamental factor in the rising levels of obesity, with poor diet and a lack of physical activity causing most people to become heavier than they should be.

"Few obesity prevention interventions have been shown to be effective in children. Comprehensive strategies that tackle diet and physical activity as well as providing psychosocial support and environmental change may help prevent obesity." (Kipping et al, 2008)

The Healthy Weight for Children Hub is an interactive information network designed to improve access to the latest available evidence and best practice in the South West. The main aims of the Hub are to:

raise awareness and promote healthy weight in children
bring people together to share experiences and enable discussion
provide timely and relevant resources and information.

The site includes a searchable database of healthy weight initiatives and research, a discussion forum, links to useful resources, information for parents and guidance on evaluating interventions, as well as the latest news and events.

Contact us

If you would like to get in touch with us, please contact the Healthy Weight for Children Hub team.

Get involved!

Search our database of child weight interventions or add your own project here.
Need to get something off your chest? Share your thoughts in our discussion forum.
Are you promoting an event? Add the details here.
Explore our collection of resources or add your own here.
Want to find out more about maintaining healthy weight for your family? Read about the key issues and find links to useful resources.

Future developments

Intervention evaluations

The Healthy Weight for Children Hub is on the lookout for effective evaluation methods to help people monitor and assess their Interventions. We want to produce case studies to demonstrate best practice techniques for monitoring and evaluating child weight-related projects. This might include a process or system, a specific tool or any helpful tips and advice on how to successfully measure an Intervention.

We are also planning to create an Evaluation Tool, which will be a step-by-step guide to completing an Intervention evaluation. A link to this tool will be displayed here soon.

Please keep visiting the site to keep up-to-date with the latest developments! We also welcome any feedback and suggestions to improve the site. Please send us your thoughts using the feedback form.