Show us the money says CTC

New guidance on tackling obesity from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has called for local authorities, healthcare professionals, schools and employers to do more to promote cycling. The guidance has been published two days before CTC is due to attend a conference called by Health Minister Caroline Flint to discuss the Department for Health's 'Healthy Living' strategy to tackle childhood obesity; a meeting at which CTC will call for greater investment in cycle training.

The NICE guidelines address both the prevention and treatment of obesity in adults and children and are overwhelmingly positive about cycling. The report includes recommendations that:

Getting kids on bikes is great for healthy hearts + minds in later life!

Local authorities provide cycling and walking routes, cycle parking, and safer streets through measures such as traffic calming, congestion charging, pedestrian crossings, and cycle routes

Schools should make provision for cycling, Healthcare professionals should give people advice on making walking, cycling, swimming, aerobics or gardening a part of everyday life. CTC Campaigns & Policy Manager, Roger Geffen, said: “There appears to be a consensus emerging amongst Governmental departments that cycling, and in particular cycle training, offers an effective solution to all sorts of problems - not least of all obesity.”

CTC is helping Cycling England to ensure that 50 per cent of all 11-year-olds in England will have access to 'Bikeability' - the new Government-backed national standard for cycle training. But CTC will explain to the Health Minister that for about £15million extra, every 11-year old could be catered to. “It's essential that cycling not only helps to prevent obesity, through the provision of training for school children, but helps deal with the current crisis - CTC is planning to develop guidance for cycle trainers that would equip them to deal with the clinically obese and those with mental impairments.”

The review by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is available at www.nice.org.uk