The Daily Mile? programme could help schools’ tackle childhood obesity

A study evaluating the effectiveness of the widely used 'Daily Mile' intervention in schools to tackle childhood obesity has found that the benefits are small, and may be greater in girls than boys. The study concluded that whilst interventions such as The Daily Mile are not going to reduce childhood obesity alone, they could be an important part of a wider population strategy to tackling this challenge. The Daily Mile was first launched by a school in Scotland in 2012 and sees children spending at least 15 minutes jogging or running, at their own pace, during the school day - exercise which on average equates to approximately one mile and is over and above the national curriculum and timetabled break times. Over 10,500 schools and nurseries worldwide have adopted the intervention, which is also recommended by the UK Government as part of its plan to tackle childhood obesity, despite no robust evidence of its benefits. In this cluster-randomised controlled trial, the largest of its kind, researchers set out to evaluate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of The Daily Mile for obesity prevention in children in comparison to schools' usual health and well-being activities. Forty state-funded Birmingham schools took part in the study, half of which were randomly chosen to implement The Daily Mile intervention, while the other half were randomly placed into a 'control group' and implemented only the school's usual health and well-being activities. At the start of the trial in April 2017, all participating children were weighed and measured, and their body mass index calculated, as well as percentage body fat.