BeeZee Bodies 5-15 years old Weight Management Service
BeeZee Bodies have been commissioned by Enfield Council as part of funding by Public Health England (now OHID) to provide FREE support for local families to make healthy changes to their lifestyle. Their aim is to reduce obesity in the borough by working in partnership with all sectors to increase referrals to their weight management service for children 5-15 years old.
The award-winning BeeZee Families program is starting soon. This will be an 11-week course beginning the week of 14th February 2022. Families can choose from one of four convenient locations to join them once a week and learn about simple healthy lifestyle changes as a family. The team are passionate about delivering this information in a way that is fun and engaging for the whole family. There will be free snacks, music, games, activities, cook-along and more!
Details are available to download on the right, including a leaflet which can be distributed to parents.
- Age range: 5-15 years - at least one parent/carer must attend the full course
- Programme length: 12 weeks, 2 hour sessions
- Multi-component, holistic programme that aims to support children and young people who are overweight and obese and their families, and sustainably managing their weight and building self-supporting family capacity and resilience. This is achieved by using a theory driven, evidence-based mix of key healthy eating and physical activity messages underpinned by the latest behaviour change strategies
- The focus is on maintaining or reducing BMI via gradual, sustainable weight reduction or maintenance; which is dependent on age group and individual needs throughout and following the programme.
- 1 hour of Nutrition focused topic and 1 hour of physical activity.
Nutrition (1 hour)
- A healthy balanced diet is encouraged in line with the EatWell Guide
- Delivered using fun, realistic and interactive tasks centred around core themes. Example topics include: healthy snacking, energy balance, habits & routines, portion size and takeaways.
- Cooking sessions increase confidence in preparing, cooking and serving balanced meals together with opportunities to undertake food preparation and cooking for both children and parents.
- Healthy snack provided each week for the families to try and to help encourage them to have outside of the session.
- Weekly challenges are set at the end of session which is based around the topic covered that week. This aids behaviour change at home and helps the families identify how they can apply the information to their own life. The achievement of completing the challenge, by either sending a photo via the group whatsapp or showing the CWM practitioner, is recorded on a challenge reward chart as well as attendance of the programme. Families are encouraged to get as many stickers as possible to win a family hamper in our graduation week.
Physical Activity (1 hour)
- We bring in coaches from the local area (e.g. Premier Sports, local community sports and activity clubs) to run physical activity taster sessions for the families, which allows sustainable exit routes to be created and a chance to ‘have a go’ at lots of different activities to see if there are some that the families enjoy and would like to take up outside of BeeZee Families. This has been highly effective in our current contracts in creating partnerships with local sports clubs and organisations, breaking down barriers to participation by offering free first tasters at a club, knowing the coach, attending with other people from BZF and having developed at least some basic skills in the activity.
- Goals of the session are to reframe physical activity as something that is fun for its own sake, easy to access locally and great for all-important family bonding.
- Strengthens the group dynamics and enables different families to get to know each other. This is vital to encouraging the families to bond and support each other through the process. The physical activities are commonly cited as the most popular aspect of the programme.