17 April 2011
Football clubs give fans help to battle the bulge
Photo opportunity: 12 noon on Tuesday, 19th April at Radisson Blu Hotel, Edinburgh. Rival fans from Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian will be appearing in club colours to tell how SPL coaches helped them lose ... in weight.
Scottish football clubs have the power to help their fans battle obesity, according to new research examining the experiences of fans who were invited to train with their clubs.
Eleven Scottish Premier League (SPL) clubs took part in Football Fans in Training (FFIT), a 12-week programme part-funded by the Football Pools and delivered to male supporters. Over 300 fans took advantage of the chance to be put through their paces by club coaches and lost a combined 1,202 kg as a result.
Public health and gender experts from the Universities of Stirling, Dundee and Strathclyde, the Medical Research Council/Chief Scientist Office Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, and NHS Forth Valley carried out the pilot study in collaboration with the Scottish Premier League Trust, the community arm of the SPL.
The researchers will discuss the project’s success in encouraging men from across the country to lose weight, eat more healthily and take more exercise when they present a paper at the Scottish School of Primary Care (SSPC) annual conference in Edinburgh next week. Hearts fan Grant Thorburn and Hibs supporter Graham Jameson will put their rivalry aside to share their experiences of the FFIT initiative with delegates at the conference.
The research team examined the outcomes of the project and concluded that men-only programmes such as this, coupled with the emotional pull of getting involved with their club, helps overcome the stigma attached to attending existing commercial and public weight-loss programmes in the eyes of some men.
Dr Cindy Gray, from the University of Stirling and one of the researchers involved in evaluating the success of the FFIT project, said, 'Male obesity is a severe problem in Scotland, with some of the highest rates in Europe. This is likely to lead to persisting health inequalities and premature death in future.
'We examined whether the FFIT intervention was successful in encouraging overweight and obese men to lose weight and found that the football club setting and men-only approach were key in attracting men to FFIT.
'Participants were offered information on nutrition and exercise that helped them to lose weight, and the personalised goal-setting approach was effective in terms of diet and physical activity.
'We would expect to find this in such a project, but the challenge is to get overweight and obese men to engage with it in the first place. In this respect, the professional football club ‘brand’ has considerable potential to attract men, who may otherwise be hard to engage, to weight management programmes.
'The study demonstrates that gender-sensitisation of weight management interventions may have to consider both the content, and the site and context of delivery if we are to successfully engage men and attempt to reverse escalating rates of obesity.'
The second phase of the project will be launched in August 2011, and the FFIT partners hope that more than 1000 fans will sign up.
FFIT is open to men between the ages of 35 and 65 who meet any of the following criteria:
- BMI of 28+
- Belly 40 inches +
- Trouser waist size of 38 inches +
To register your interest in the programme please call 0800 389 2129, text FFIT to 88802 or email ffit@sphsu.mrc.ac.uk.
For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07800 581902 |
