Leeds Beckett University launches new Obesity Institute to unite students and staff to help tackle issue

Leeds Beckett University has launched a new 'Obesity Institute' to unite students and staff to help tackle the issue.
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The number of people living with obesity has tripled since 1978, and over 650 million people across the world are living with overweight or obesity.

Two thirds of adults and one third of children in England are now living with overweight or obesity.

A spokesperson from the university said The Obesity Institute (OI) offers a great opportunity to help these people and make a real-world impact.A spokesperson from the university said The Obesity Institute (OI) offers a great opportunity to help these people and make a real-world impact.
A spokesperson from the university said The Obesity Institute (OI) offers a great opportunity to help these people and make a real-world impact.

Friday March 4 is World Obesity Day.

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The day also marks the launch of the new institute at Leeds, bringing together "a wealth of knowledge and experience from across the whole university".

A spokesperson from the university said The Obesity Institute (OI) offers a great opportunity to help these people and make a real-world impact.

The mission of the OI is to work with people living with and at risk of obesity to co-develop innovative person-centred approaches to obesity locally, nationally and internationally, and their aim is to improve the lives of people living with or at risk of obesity.

The OI has four main focuses – research; knowledge exchange and enterprise, learning and teaching; and patient and public involvement.

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The Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Hub will ensure the voice of people living with, or at risk of, obesity is at the core of the OI’s work – making sure that the outcomes of the work will always have a real-world application and focus.

The OI will be a pan-university operation, with academics and students from across all disciplines bringing their expertise to help tackle obesity.

For example, an art specialist will be looking at innovative ways to communicate messages around healthy living, a built-environment specialist looking at how we can design and organise public spaces better to encourage active lifestyles, or a computing expert may be exploring how we can use digital technologies to help people regain a healthier relationship with diet and exercise.

Professor Louisa Ells, from Leeds Beckett University’s School of Health, is one of the Directors of the OI.

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She said it was a "huge honour and privilege" to be co-directing this pioneering new Institute.

She continued: "To me what is special about the Obesity Institute is our united passion and drive to make a real and tangible difference to the lives of people living with obesity.

"People living with obesity are fundamentally at the heart of everything we do, and the Institute will provide the inclusive, supportive, compassionate and collaborative infrastructure required to bring together the numerous skills and expertise required to really make a step change in tackling this chronic, highly complex life changing disease”.

Ken Clare is the Chair of the Patient and Public Involvement hub at the OI.

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He said: “I’m really proud to be part of something like the PPI hub in the Obesity Institute in Leeds Beckett University.

"I think in any research, in any activity, it’s important to understand what the person with the lived experience of that condition or disease or illness is going through. You need to put that person at front and centre of any approach.

“The Obesity Institute brings together scientists, researchers, clinicians from across a range of parts of the university, and at every point the person with the lived experience of obesity is central to what’s going on, and I think that’s one of the unique things about the Leeds Beckett approach.”

Mark McCormack, Director at Obesity UK, welcomes the Obesity Institute.

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He said: “Obesity UK are delighted with the plans for the new Obesity Institute at Leeds Beckett University, with a long track record in delivering applied obesity research at Leeds Beckett, we look forward to our future collaboration and patient and public involvement and engagement activities.”

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