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Jamie Oliver's TV series 'helped children to lose weight'
TV CHEF Jamie Oliver's show about school dinners was more effective at getting children to lose weight than campaigns aimed at making them feel unattractive, researchers claim.
A University of Bath study into the effectiveness of obesity campaigns has found that young people who do not like their appearance are no more motivated to change their diet than children who are happy with their shape.
But the researchers claim that if children of all sizes are made to think about their bodies they become more receptive to campaigns about losing weight and eating better.
Lecturer Ekant Veer said yesterday that Jamie's School Dinners was an "excellent starting point" which got children thinking about their health.
Mr Veer split the children in the study into two groups. One was asked to draw a picture of themselves.
Both groups of children were then shown advertising posters either urging them to shed the pounds or giving educational information about weight loss.
Of the children who had drawn themselves and were therefore thinking about their bodies, 75 per cent said they would eat better and exercise more after seeing the advertisements.
Only 58 per cent of the others, who had not been asked to draw a picture, said the adverts had an effect.
Mr Veer said: "These results show that when a student is thinking about their size the use of ads to encourage them to eat healthier or be more active has a significant effect.
"This research shows that getting young people to think about themselves frequently makes them much more receptive to campaigns giving information about how to eat more healthily and to exercise. TV shows such as those involving Jamie Oliver and school dinners are an excellent starting point since they will make schoolchildren think about their weight, without making children feel like they are not attractive or are worthless. These types of messages don't work.
"Health professionals should bear this in mind when they come to create campaigns or their efforts could be a waste of resources."
The study involved 330 youngsters aged between 13 and 18.
Mr Veer said that in some children there was a big difference between their body size and the shape they would like to be.
But they were no more motivated to change their diet or increase the amount of exercise they do than those who were close to their ideal weights.
Of those who were much bigger than their ideal size, 26 per cent said they wanted to improve their diet and take more exercise compared with 25 per cent of those who were less overweight.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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