More than one
million mums already making healthier choices with Change4Life
One million mums say their families are eating better and being
more active, and people are making positive changes to their
shopping habits, thanks to Change4Life. This new data comes as the
Government’s healthy living movement celebrates its first year of
activity today.
Change4Life is an innovative, interactive healthy living
campaign. It helps families to achieve and maintain a healthier
lifestyle by promoting healthy habits that encourage them to eat
well, move more and live longer.
The movement is already showing good progress in changing harmful
behaviours which can lead to people becoming overweight or obese:
one million mums claim to have attempted to change their
children’s behaviour as a result of Change4Life;latest data show
that obesity prevalence in children is levelling out; an early
analysis of people’s shopping baskets suggests that families who
signed up to Change4Life are now more likely to chose low fat
milks and low sugar drinks: andfor every pound spent on the
campaign, three pounds are spent by partners such as Tesco and
Asda to build momentum.
In its first year, the focus of the campaign was on young
families. The spotlight will now fall on adults. This follows new
evidence, published today by the National Heart Forum, which
predicts a near 100 per cent rise in diabetes by 2050 unless
people take action now.
The independent report states that rising adult obesity will see
significant increases in diseases like diabetes, coronary heart
disease, hypertension and stroke. Losing weight, improving your
diet and increasing the amount of activity you do can, for
example, reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by more
than 50 percent[i].
The next phase of Change4Life will bring a new wave of
advertising to our television screens encouraging adults to ‘Swap
it, Don’t stop it’ - make simple changes in their diet and
lifestyle which will help them lead longer, healthier lives, and
lose that unwanted spare tyre.
Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham said:
“In response to an urgent need to tackle the alarming rise in
obesity, we launched Change4Life - not just a campaign, but a
movement with a mission to encourage people to eat well, move more
and live longer. We have surpassed all our targets for the first
year and we are beginning to see the positive impact on families
as they start to adopt healthier lifestyles.
“The beauty of the campaign is that it motivates everyone to get
involved right down to local communities. For every pound we spend
on the campaign, other organisations have committed to spend £3 to
build momentum.This makes Change4Life a highly powerful movement.
“Unless we build on the achievements of this first year, we will
still face an obesity crisis in years to come. Today we are
launching Change4Life for adults. We are going even further to
support people to make the simple changes that will lead to us
living healthier, longer lives.”
The next phase of the campaign urges adults to ‘Swap it Don’t
Stop it’ – giving people tips on how to lose weight and feel
healthy without giving up all the things they love. There are a
series of suggested ‘swaps’ – including swapping watching a
favourite sport on television for taking part, increasing fibre
intake by choosing brown rice over white, or simply swapping
bigger plates for smaller ones to choose smaller portions of food.
The new range of television and poster adverts will air from
Saturday 20 February.
One year after the movement started, an early analysis of
people’s shopping baskets suggests that families who signed up to
Change4Life are now more likely to choose low fat milks and low
sugar drinks. The analysis compared purchases made at Tesco in
September-November 2009 with the same time period in 2008.
The Change4Life movement has branched out across England with
supporters at the grassroots, in the NHS, local government,
commercial sector and non-government organisations. Change4Life
activity is now in schools, GP surgeries, community centres and
supermarkets. A range of sub-brands including Let’s Dance with
Change4Life, Bike4Life and Walk4Life have supported people to get
up and about, and the campaign has also been extended to pregnant
mums and families with babies with Start4Life.
Communities have embraced Change4Life. In its first year:
· 44 per cent of randomly selected primary schools, hospitals,
general practices, town and village halls, children’s centres,
pharmacies, nurseries, libraries and leisure centres displayed
Change4Life materials
· more than 25,000 local supporters
used Change4Life materials to help them start conversations with
over a million people about their lifestyles
· NHS staff
ordered more than six million items of Change4Life material
·
primary schools generated more than 50,000 sign-ups to Change4Life
· local authorities and primary care trusts worked together
to create new activities including street parties and roadshows
In addition:
· Change4Life has worked with other government departments to
launch sub-brands (such as Swim4Life, Play4Life and MuckIn4Life)
· three of the main health charities (Cancer Research UK,
Diabetes UK and British Heart Foundation) ran their own campaign
in support of Change4Life and other non-Governmental
organisations, such as Natural England and Sustrans, also
supported the campaign
· businesses supported the movement,
for example by providing free gym access, money off fruit and
vegetables, and low cost bikes
[i] The US study showed that lifestyle change(weight loss,
improved diet and being physically active) reduced the risk of
developing glucose intolerance by 58%.
Notes to Editors
The new broadcast advertisement and stills are available from the
Department of Health press office on 020 7210 5221.
Change4Life – One Year On is also available from the press office.
The website is at http://www.nhs.uk/Change4life
The National Heart Forum report is available at www.heartforum.org.uk
Change4Life is the social marketing component of the Government’s
much broader response to the rise in obesity, as set out in
Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: a cross-Government strategy
for England (H M Government, 2008) and in Healthy
Weight, Healthy Lives: One Year On (HM Government, 2009).
Change4Life launched to the public in January 2009. In the spring
of that year, the Government published the Change4Life marketing
strategy (available at www.dh.gov.uk) setting out the rationale
for the programme, how it was intended to work, and what targets
had been set for the first 12 months of activity.
Basket analysis
In a pilot study, dunnhumby analysed the actual purchases (using
the Tesco Clubcard database) of 10,000 of the families who were
most engaged with Change4Life. The analysis compared purchases
made at Tesco during September, October and November 2009 (the
intervention period) with the same three months of 2008 (i.e.
pre-Change4Life). To factor out the impact of pricing and sales
promotion, dunnhumby created a control group of 10,000 non
Change4Life families who were demographically comparable and whose
purchasing in 2008 matched the intervention group.
Profiling by dunnhumby confirmed that the Change4Life households
did indeed contain a large proportion of lower income families
(i.e. that the people who are engaging with Change4Life are from
the right target audience segments.)
The analysis found differences in the purchasing behaviour of the
intervention group relative to the control. In particular, there
were changes in the purchases of beverages among Change4Life
families, favouring low fat milks and low sugar drinks. More in
depth analysis will be undertaken to confirm this.
Contacts:
Department of Health
Phone: 020 7210 5221
NDS.DH@coi.gsi.gov.uk