Nearly half of Scottish kids overweight, new campaign warns

A national campaign has been launched encouraging kids to cut out the junk, as it's revealed nearly half of all Scottish children are overweight or obese.

Figures show those few extra pounds are costing the NHS around £4.5 billion a year.

The ‘Inch by Inch’ campaign will target secondary school pupils, encouraging them to make healthier choices and if successful, will be rolled out to all ages.

A spokesperson said: “For this campaign we have created content aimed at this target market. Many campaigns in the past have been aimed at middle class families. Recipes have included ingredients that are featured in supermarkets but not in local convenience shops. Many ingredients are too expensive for people in low income areas.

“Throughout the initial sixteen months of the Inch by Inch for Scotland campaign we will be issuing challenges to people to take part – both exercise and food based.

“We have already created content for online and social media channels. This will be featured on YouTube/Facebook/Instagram and the website www.inchbyinchforscotland.co.uk.

“The exercise videos will be easy ten minute exercise routines that anyone can do (they are based on NHS approved exercises).

“The recipe cooking videos will start with meals that can be made in a microwave. All the ingredients will be available in local convenience shops, so we will be keeping them as simple as possible.

“Our first presenters are Rachel Ashmead from Largs and Jordan Docherty from Yoker in Glasgow, although we will be adding presenters from all over Scotland during the campaign.

“We will also be creating videos that show people who have overcome their own challenges and showing examples of great programmes and activities across the countries that other people and organisations can recreate.