A COUNCIL has pledged to play its part in tackling obesity.

Copeland Borough Council has became the latest authority to sign up to the Cumbria-wide Healthy Weight Declaration.

The declaration sees the council promise to work together to support initiatives to promote healthy weight.

Councillor Mark Holliday, Copeland's portfolio holder for Health and Wellbeing, said: "Health is everyone's business and it is extremely important to us that our residents do not miss out on life opportunities because of weight issues.

"We know that as a borough we need to improve our obesity statistics and we are determined to do so.

"This declaration gives us a collaborative framework to ensure we tackle it together and achieve meaningful and lasting results."

Along with the other members of the Cumbria Public Health Alliance, the council has signed up to four key areas for action.

They plan to lead local action on preventing obesity, follow best practice, and get all departments to highlight their role in tackling healthy weight.

As well as this, there is a strong emphasis on giving children the best start in life in order to maximise their opportunities.

The World Health Organisation has described childhood obesity as one of the planet's most serious public health challenges.

In Copeland, 75.9 per cent of adults are overweight or obese, while 30 per cent do less than 30 minutes of exercise each week.

The council leads the Copeland Health and Wellbeing Forum, which has made healthy weight for primary school children a priority.

The Cumbria Public Health Alliance includes representatives from all local authorities plus other organisations such as the police and fire services.

A spokesman for Copeland Borough Council said signing the Cumbria Healthy Weight Declaration supports the authority's "ambition of employment, skills and social wellbeing", as well as its strategic outcome of "working with partners to support the most vulnerable."

Earlier this year, Public Health England found 83 per cent of adults aged 40-60 in Cumbria were overweight, drank too much and exercised too little.

They launched a new campaign, One You, to encourage people to consider their health and make small but positive changes to improve it.

In two decades obesity in adults has risen by 16 per cent. A knock-on effect of this is that now one in five obese adults runs the risk of developing type two diabetes.

In Cumbria, 6.6 per cent of people have been diagnosed with diabetes – equating to just over 28,000 people.

In 2015, there were 4,692 recorded cases of diabetes in Copeland.

Last year it was found almost two in five 11-year-olds in Copeland are classed as overweight or obese.

Speaking at the time, councillor Felicity Wilson, member of Millom Town Council and Copeland Borough Council, said it was unclear why Copeland scored poorly in child health measures.

She said: "In Millom we have got the Recreation Centre which is super for children and the rugby and cricket clubs really encourage children into sport. But when you look around the rest of Cumbria and see the facilities they have, Millom doesn't have the same level.

"More children are sedentary. We need to change that."