Change4Life – Eat Well, Move More, Live Longer
Change4Life is a society-wide movement that aims to prevent people from becoming overweight by encouraging them to eat better and move more.
The Change4Life advertising campaign began on Saturday 3 January – on TV, in the press, on billboards and online and this initial stage of the £75m, three-year initiative targets young families.
Wallace &Gromit creators Aardman Animations have turned their hand to ‘cartoon’ TV adverts for the campaign which depict scenes from a bygone era when people took more exercise and contrast these with modern scenes of families eating pizza and children playing video games.
The Change4Life campaign makes the subject of weight and physical activity a hot topic and urges people to make changes to their diet and levels of activity. The campaign talks about ‘fat in the body’ rather than ‘fat bodies’ and makes clear the link between fat and preventable illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.
It also pins the blame on modern life, which affects all of us, rather than pointing the finger at parents.
If current trends continue, 90 percent of today’s children could be overweight or obese by 2050 everyone needs to address the rise in obesity for the sake of the future health of the nation’s children.
Head of Public Policy at Diabetes UK, Saranjit Sihota, said recently, “Almost unheard of just ten years ago, there are now at least 1400 children in the UK with Type 2 diabetes, all of whom were overweight or obese at diagnosis.
“These children are now going to have to live with diabetes for the rest of their lives and are at risk of serious health problems such as heart disease, stroke, amputations, kidney failure and blindness.
“There is no getting away from the fact that the obesity crisis has led to the rapid increase in children diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and so we welcome any initiative that promotes physical activity, a healthier diet and that raises awareness of the serious implications of a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet.”