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COVID-19 lockdowns have triggered a spike in mental health issues, which for some manifested in disordered eating.
Statistics from eating disorders charity, Beat, show an 140 per cent increase in demand for their helpline services between February and November 2020.
There are also more reports of health club members asking their instructors for help with non-hunger eating and food-related issues.
Professionals working in health and fitness have a pivotal role to play in the fight to help people overcome these self-sabotaging tendencies.
Getting help early is the key to success, the NHS has seen a million people seeking help with obesity, while eating disorder helpline services are overwhelmed and GPs can’t cope.
It makes sense to have specialist training available for personal trainers and fitness professionals in the health and fitness industry.
This is partly because PTs are likely to find themselves on the front line when it comes to working with people with disordered eating. They’re also well placed to encourage a client to utilise other support, such as therapists, nutritional support, friends and family and, if necessary, doctors and medical services.
A health and fitness professionals’ attitude towards helping people build healthy relationships with food and their body can play an important part in their recovery.
Another strong reason for PTs to upskill in this area is that they interact with clients regularly and so are in a position to identify disordered eating patterns – sometimes in the early stages – and use coaching skills to prevent someone from developing a full-blown eating disorder.
Referral from the NHS GP services to specialist PTs could be a gamechanger and also increase the standing of fitness instructors and the industry in the eyes of the public.
My mission is to create an army of food addiction coaches, armed with the facts, strategies and techniques to create transformation and fulfilment with effective, results-based methods and compassion.
Helping a member or a client change their relationship with food, while healthily increasing their physical activity levels is the way forward.
We need a paradigm shift in the way we approach disordered eating and as health and fitness professionals, together we can do just that.
Dr Bunmi Aboaba
"PTs are likely to find themselves on the front line when it comes to working with people with disordered eating"
– Dr Bunmi Aboaba
The Moving Communities team welcomes Martyn Allison’s comments in the previous issue of HCM (Issue 5 2021, page 78, ‘Aiming for Equality’).
Martyn articulately sums up the value of the Moving Communities data collection and dashboard to the sector and raises some very valid points.
In delivering on the Moving Communities initiative, we have taken the National Benchmarking Service and enhanced it, both with added content – such as the Social Value Calculator – and also with greater coverage across England.
There are now 1,200 sites and 254 local authorities submitting data to the platform and the recent Customer Experience Survey received over 50,000 responses from individuals having visited at least one of 1,183 sites since the re-opening on April-21.
This represents 267 operators, and 158 local authorities.
These participants are not just ‘members’ – many are pay and play customers as a result of the fact that sites are requesting all visits be booked as part of their COVIID-19 safe procedures.
Our two-page infographic can be downloaded in full from www.movingcommunities.org and shows data based on the first seven weeks of Moving Communities. This indicates that a greater proportion of participation in leisure centres has come from people living in more deprived areas, when compared to the same time period in 2019.
While there is still higher total participation by people from less deprived areas, the distribution across the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) deciles, is more balanced than it was before the pandemic.
We have a desire to drive change via the data and insight that our platform is generating. The data and insight provided so far by Moving Communities is highly encouraging, especially when analysing the return of participants from deprived areas.
It is key to note, however, that the data is from a short seven-week period and is, therefore, subject to change, especially as wider behavioural trends develop across society and restrictions associated with the pandemic are gradually lifted.
As further data becomes available, it’s vital that greater focus is placed on using qualitative and behavioural research to understand quantitative data in more detail, as well as informing how the sector invests into and engages with local facilities and communities.
• Find out more: Data and insights are shared on our website, www.movingcommunities.org, on LinkedIn @Moving _Communities and Twitter @MovingCommunit1
The UK Government is in an invidious position. The pandemic has set two key components of the UK economy – commercial landlords and their tenants – at loggerheads, and policymakers have had to walk a tightrope as they attempt to provide a balanced route forward.
The recent announcement that the government’s rent moratorium would be extended was music to the ears of many commercial tenants, particularly businesses in the health and fitness and leisure sectors, which have endured some of the toughest and most prolonged restrictions so far during the pandemic.
However, this blanket approach to the extension of the moratorium has been met with dismay by many landlords, who were hoping to see more nuanced solutions that were tailored to those sectors which have been hardest hit, in order to avert a scenario where tenants might exploit the moratorium by deferring rent payments.
Landlords in which UK pensions are invested may wonder when it will be their turn to receive support.
While tenants have been told to pay their rent if they are in a position to do so, there is seemingly no recourse if they refuse.
The Government has stated that if commercial landlords and tenants fail to come to an agreement over unpaid rent, then binding arbitration will be put in place. However, it is still unclear how arbitration would operate, who would manage it and who would pay the costs of it.
Binding agreements are already part of the CVA and Restructuring Plan procedures – both also the subject of criticism among many landlords.
Which begs the question, why would either party see arbitration as preferable or likely to provide a better outcome?
More detail is also needed around whether arbitration would be voluntary, or made mandatory in certain circumstances – for instance, by tying it to a tenant’s ability to continue to avail the benefits of the moratorium, or where agreement cannot be reached in a given timeframe.
It will also be intriguing to see whether it will offer a more attractive route for debt-laden commercial tenants than the potentially quicker ’fix’ of a formal restructuring, CVA or other insolvency process.
With tensions between landlords and tenants rising, it’s important for both parties to understand that coming to a mutually beneficial arrangement is in their best interests. The latest announcements have halted a potential avalanche of insolvencies and job losses; the key to further safeguarding thousands of businesses and jobs now, however, is through all participants working together. Litigation – and perhaps arbitration – should be a last resort.
