Tackling childhood obesity within schools: A review of interventions

By Janet Wordley, Professor Rachael Dixey

Summary report

Download in Arabic

Download now

The aim of this review is to enable the UAE education sector and policy makers to think about how they could incorporate schools-based interventions into the wider strategy to tackle childhood obesity.

Involving schools in tackling obesity would seem a logical and useful way forward. However, school-basedwork can be seen against a backdrop where:

“Hundreds of interventions to the combat obesity epidemic are currently being introduced worldwide, but there are significant gaps in the evidence base for such interventions and few have been evaluated in a way that enables any definitive conclusion to be drawn about their effectiveness.” (Thirlaway and Upton 2009 p82)

There are no simple ways forward, and there is no consensus among the public health community about the best ways to tackle the obesity epidemic. This review will introduce promising interventions, and also try to make sense of some of the issues in evaluating interventions to tackle obesity within schools. The lessons for the UAE are not spelt out, as this will be left to educationalists and policy makers within country.

Downloads

Improving school attendance by fostering a sense of community belonging

Since 2010, school absence rates in England have gradually increased, and were undoubtedly exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite a small decrease in persistent absences from 2022 to 2023, attendance rates have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. In this article, we explore the causes of persistent school absences, and identify promising interventions to ensure more pupils in England consistently attend school.

Article

EDT at the Education World Forum 2023

This month, we were proud to sponsor the Education World Forum (EWF), the world’s largest gathering of education and skills ministers. The London-based conference brought over 140 ministers of education together consider this year’s EWF theme: stronger, bolder, better education by design.

Article

‘Systems Thinking’ – new book released by NORRAG features EDT research

This new book explores the complex challenges around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’.

Article

EDT shares education expertise at the Schools and Academies Show

Representatives from our programmes in education, leadership development and employability and careers are taking part in the Schools and Academies Show (SAAS) on 17 November at the NEC in Birmingham. Education Development Trust will be engaging with school and sector leaders to discuss challenges in education and explore how we provide support.

Tackling childhood obesity within schools: A review of interventions

Janet Wordley

Professor Rachael Dixey

Downloads

Tackling childhood obesity within schools: A review of interventions (English)

Tackling childhood obesity within schools: A review of interventions (Arabic)

Tackling childhood obesity within schools: A review of interventions (Summary)

Related Content

Improving school attendance by fostering a sense of community belonging

EDT at the Education World Forum 2023

‘Systems Thinking’ – new book released by NORRAG features EDT research

EDT shares education expertise at the Schools and Academies Show