A new initiative is being launched by Hereford Primary Care Trust and Herefordshire Hospitals NHS Trust to help doctors' surgeries with weight management advice sessions.
The Obesity Tool Kit will be made available to all Herefordshire's surgeries and be put to good use by obesity champions - practice nurses charged with the task of helping patients who need to lose weight.
Contents include a 2.2kg (51b) body fat replica which can be very helpful when motivating people to lose weight and some realistic fruit models to help explain different body shapes and discuss calorie contents of foods. There's even a take-away included for patients consisting of healthy eating and physical activity leaflets and posters.
Being clinically overweight or obese* can have a serious impact on health increasing risks of diabetes, cancer and heart and liver disease. Herefordshire has a higher obesity rate than the English average with over one in four adults affected.
Catherine Floyd, health improvement manager for the obesity programme at the Primary Care Trust comments: "There are many ways to lose weight but we hope that by providing these kits we will be supporting our GP practices to encourage healthier eating and more active life-styles amongst our population."
Rebecca Stanners, community dietician at the County Hospital adds: "We're sure that the practice staff will find the kits a useful tool to support the work they do to help people lose weight.
"Long term, we all need to work together to challenge the way we live which contributes to weight gain problems. For example, our reliance on cars rather than walking, or the readily available high energy foods promoted to our children, contribute to the county's rising obesity levels and the problems associated with carrying extra weight."
An on-line calculator is available at http://www.weightconcern.co.uk/ for anyone interested to know their BMI.
Further information is available from the Health Information Centre on (01432) 382190/1.