Agenda and minutes

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting of the Task Group held on 1 March 2010.

RESOLVED:             That the minutes of the meeting of the Task Group held on 1 March 2010 be approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

It is at this point in the meeting that members of the public who have registered their wish to speak can do so. The deadline for registering is by 5.00pm on Friday 16 April 2010. Members of the public can speak on agenda items or matters within the remit of the Task Group.

To register please contact the Democracy Officer for the meeting, on the details at the foot of this agenda.

It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

This report asks Members to receive and consider further information to inform their review into childhood obesity. It also asks them to formulate some recommendations for inclusion in the draft final report.

Members considered a report, which presented them with further information to inform their review into childhood obesity to enable them to formulate some recommendations for inclusion in the final draft report.

The Scrutiny Officer informed Members that the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, had at their meeting on 29 March, considered the Task Groups Interim Report. The Committee had felt that, in view of the authorities low take up of school meals, the Education Authority should proactively encourage the promotion and general take up of both school meals and free school meals through individual schools and their Governors. They had suggested that the Childhood Obesity Task Group might like to consider including a recommendation to this effect in the final report.

In view of the vast amount of information received to date the Task Group were reminded of their need to focus their discussions on the aim of the review, which was to address whether current service provision was effectively reducing childhood obesity in the city.

In relation to the key objectives information had previously been provided or was circulated at the meeting in relation to each objective, details of which were set out under each objective below:

Objective ii) To explore the impact of current initiatives such as healthy eating, 5 a day and 30 minutes of exercise 5 times a week etc on tackling obesity.

• Briefing note on the Healthy Schools initiative (Annex A of the report).
• Details of physical activity within schools (the Council’s PE and Schools Sport Consultant presented this information)
• Details relating to the take up of school meals in like for like Authorities, and weekly menus (Annex B) (the Council’s Contracts Manager presented this information).
• Progress of “Just 30” physical activity campaign – Report to Executive Member for Leisure, Culture and Social Inclusion, 13 April 2010 (circulated at the meeting).

Members questioned a number of points in relation to the presentation, including:

• Definition of obesity;
• How involved were parents in relation to the schools screening programme;
• School halls often doubled up as canteens which were not ideal surroundings for eating;
• Schools were not able to police packups;
• School Tuck Shops were no longer able to stock flapjacks, cheese etc which often resulted in children’s pack ups containing chocolate bars/crisps as snacks at break;
• Children were often better informed on healthy eating issues than parents so there was a need to re-educate parents on the ideal pack-up;
• Concern at low take up rate of school meals and the possibility of this not changing unless the claim form was simplified;
• Any PE beyond the governments recommended 2 hours per week was often a charged for;
• Of the money put into active leisure in North Yorkshire by the PCT how much was allocated to York?
• Theatre and drama were not seen as exercise;
• There was evidence that where Play builder money had been used for schemes that there had been good take up;
• That no one Officer had sole responsibility for obesity issues. 

Objective iii) To explore  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.