Weight-loss classes for children being offered by Merseyside charity

Overweight Boy aged 6-8 pinching fat around his waist

A charity is attempting to counteract the UK’s growing obesity epidemic by providing free weight-loss classes for children.

The classes are run by Fre-Set, an innovative volunteer-run weight-loss organisation in St Helens that launched two years ago.

The classes normally consist of around 16, 11 to 13-year-olds, although some participants may be slightly older or younger.

During a session healthy eating messages are combined with fun exercises - including playground and theatre-based games. Often parents take part too.

The week-day classes usually run for an hour and fifteen minutes but Fre-Set has organised day-long workshops during school holidays too.

St Helens-based David Russiano is one of the founders of Fre-Set. He told the ECHO that the classes are less about getting children to lose weight but more about “getting them excited by healthy eating.”

Group of Nutritious fruit and vegetables organic for healthy

He said: “We find it difficult to engage children in healthy eating as it’s not a fascinating topic, so we tie the messages up with high energy games and activities.

David, who used to run the Merseyside Youth Theatre, said he chose to focus the classes on 11 to 13-year-olds as “at that age we can get them interested in both the activities and the more intellectual side”.

According to data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre, 25.2% of year six children in St Helens are either overweight or obese.

The ‘St Helens Health and Well-being Pupil Survey’ (March 2013) also found that only 13% of secondary school pupils eat five or more fruit and vegetables portions per day

David said: “We wanted to create something that is as commonplace as Scouts and Brownies, but while they focus on camping and cooking skills we do fun activities with a focus on healthy eating and fitness.

“These types of classes are much more important now than ever before.”

David is aware that there’s a “careful line” to be drawn when promoting weight-loss classes for children. He said: “Whether we put ‘weight-loss’ in the adverts depends who’s reading them. We phrase the ads in different ways depending if they’re read by parents or children. But we’ve never faced any sort of backlash.”