HEALTH chiefs are set to allocate personal fitness instructors to 400 obese children across the Lothians.
A new NHS Lothian strategy will see exercise coaches meeting with both the children and their families to develop a plan to help them lose weight.
The 36 workers will set targets on diet and exercise to curb the rising tide of obesity among childr
en.
A handful of severely underweight children will also be included in the scheme.
The move ties in with a wider initiative to get youngsters' weight under control, such as promoting healthy eating.
One-to-one meetings between obese children and experts will also take place at the start and end of each programme to assess progress.
Obesity costs NHS Lothian an extra £22 million a year and it is estimated around 120,000 Lothians adults are obese, a figure that is rising all the time.
Graham Mackenzie, a consultant in public health medicine for NHS Lothian, said: "Maintaining a healthy weight can reduce your risk of developing heart disease, some cancers, diabetes and high blood pressure.
"We know that helping children to incorporate physical activity and healthy eating into their everyday lives at an early age is the best way to ensure that they can maintain a healthy lifestyle into adulthood."
The proposals were outlined to NHS board members as they try to devise a strategy for the area's five to 15-year-olds.
It is widely accepted that national action plans have made no impact on the weight time bomb. In fact the problem appears to be getting worse.
If a child aged up to 15 is considered to be dangerously fat and the parents are doing nothing about it, the ultimate sanction can be for a local authority to take him or her into care.
And even though this happened in April to a nine-year-old in a Lothians council, it is understood there were a number of other considerations and councils would be extremely reluctant to take such action.
Children's weight is assessed by a version of the body mass index, with youngsters reaching a certain score being earmarked for the measures. Other proposals include encouraging more children to walk to school, installing places for bikes on trams and buses, and improving school crossings.
Nationally, £171m is spent by the NHS every year on dealing with obesity, with around 60 per cent of the country's adults said to be overweight.
According to an NHS Lothian statement the "inexorable" rampage of obesity "requires societal change" to improve the position as well as " change of the built environment, the commercial environment, the policy environment and the socio-cultural environment".
The full article contains 454 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
