New NHS guidelines for weight loss in England advocate physical activity as part of potentially state-funded weight management programme in a bid to encourage long-term lifestyle changes.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has called for overweight people to be introduced to daily physical activity and sent to slimming classes to achieve a three per cent weight loss.

The NHS has previously advised that obese people should aim to lose five to 10 per cent of their body mass, and NICE maintains this should still be the overall goal, but points out that incremental targets are more achievable and may help to avoid ‘yo-yo dieting.’

NICE is encouraging a long-term approach to weight loss – urging overweight people to “lose a little and keep it off” – and has said said providers of lifestyle weight management programmes should demonstrate that they are effective after 12 months or beyond.

Currently, two in three adults in England are overweight, with obesity costing the NHS £5.1bn every year.

The new guidelines also call for weight-management problems to be respectful and non-judgemental, whereas some health experts have said practitioners must “disregard hurt feelings” in order to get a grip on the nation’s obesity crisis.