St Johnstone fan used to gasp going up stairs – now Football Fans in Training scheme has him climbing mountains
If 26-stone St Johnstone football fan Alastair Christie had been told four years ago that his passion for his Scottish Premiership team would power him to lose nine stone and to conquer 37 of Scotland’s highest mountains, he would have responded with a choice expression from the terraces.
But a scheme run by 13 clubs in the Scottish Professional Football League has helped Christie and hundreds more overweight, middle-aged, football fans to get in shape according to research published this week in medical journal, the Lancet and BMC Public Health.
The research by Glasgow University on 747 men who went through the Football Fans in Training (FFIT) programme found that they lost nine times as much weight as those not on it.
The randomised 12-month study from June 2011 of a health programme delivered in a football club setting (possibly a world first) found that as well as losing weight on the 12-week programme, nearly 40% of men in the study maintained a weight loss of at least 5% of their original body weight a year later.
According to the 2011 Scottish health survey, just under two-thirds (64.3%) of adults, aged 16 and over, were classed as overweight or obese. With obesity linked to heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer and other health problems, these results couldn’t come quickly enough for those working in public health. Men are notoriously difficult to engage in health programmes but one of the outstanding successes of FFIT, according to the research, was that it attracted men from across the socio-economic spectrum.
The formula is simple – organise male-only sessions in Scottish premiership clubs and run it “just like going to the pub but without the beer”, capitalising on the men’s devotion to their club.
“From what I was – a great, big, heavy, strongman – to being able to climb mountains, and play football with my son Blair, is like night and day,” says Christie, 43, a prison officer, who used to gasp climbing the stairs in Perth prison. He heard about the programme from a fellow fan. Club-based recruitment was via websites, in-stadium advertising, and FFIT recruitment staff approaching potentially eligible men on match days. Over the weeks, the 15-strong group at the Perth-based St Johnstone FC turned up in their football shirts to learn about a good diet and how to get fitter, with the help of a coach.
Strong relationships were formed that turned into walking groups, 5-a-side teams and Munro-bagging parties.
“For me, it was the banter between everybody and the coaches that made it possible,” says Christie. “It made coming to FFIT fun and not a chore. Doing the programme at McDiarmid Park most definitely spurred me on to change to a healthier lifestyle which I’ve continued.”
Professor Sally Wyke, one of the two principal investigators from the University of Glasgow says: “We now have ‘gold standard’ evidence that the FFIT programme can help men lose weight and keep it off.” Research will now focus on the 60% who did not maintain the weight loss at the 12-month follow-up.
Her team has secured a €6m (£5m) EU grant to develop a similar programme in Portugal, the Netherlands and clubs in the English Premier League.
Fellow researcher Cindy Gray is working with Sale Sharks, an English professional rugby union club, to see if FFIT can work in a rugby context. She is also exploring an equivalent for women.
The FFIT concept has gone into two Scottish prisons – Perth and Castle Huntly, near Dundee – as a result of Christie’s success. A PE instructor colleague spotted that the man known as “Big Al” was approaching half his original size and he decided that Al’s secret might do some of the prisoners good.
Kevin Fenton, national director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, is interested in FFIT’s success. A quarter of adults in England are obese. “There is growing evidence that physical activity has a key role in preventing cancer, coronary heart disease, type-2 diabetes and high blood pressure; therefore getting more men physically active is key to improving the health of the population.”
A note of caution is sounded by professor Jason Holford, chairman elect of the UK Association for the Study of Obesity, who says: “The football industry itself – and other sports like rugby – need to take it a stage further and wean themselves off alcohol and junk food sponsorship, as they did with smoking.”
- Obesity
- Health
- Fitness
- Scottish Premiership
Rachel Pugh
theguardian.com