Website of the Department of Health

Healthy Weight, Healthy lives
A Cross Government strategy for England

A £372 million cross-government strategy to help everyone lead healthier lives was published in January 2008 by the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson and the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls.

Healthy Weight, Healthy lives: A Cross-Government strategy for England  supports the creation of a healthy society - from early years, to schools and food, from sport and physical activity to planning, transport and the health service.

It will bring together employers, individuals and communities to promote children’s health and healthy food; build physical activity into our lives; support health at work; and provide the incentives more widely to promote health. It will also provide effective treatment and support when people become overweight or obese.

Having been at least 30 years in the making, the obesity trend will not be halted overnight. This strategy is a first step and will be followed by an annual report that assesses progress, looks at the latest evidence and trends and make recommendations for further action. A panel of experts will assist the Government, with input from a new public health obesity observatory that will develop our understanding of what changes behaviour.

The strategy will focus on five areas:

The healthy growth and development of children

• identify at-risk families as early as possible and plans to promote breastfeeding as the norm for mothers
• invest to ensure all schools are healthy schools, including making cooking a compulsory part of the national curriculum by 2011 for all 11-14 year-olds
• invest £75 million in an evidence-based marketing programme which will inform, support and empower parents in making changes to their children’s diet and levels of physical activity 

Promoting healthier food choices

• finalise a Healthy Food Code of Good Practice, in partnership with the food and drink industry, and other relevant stakeholders. This code would challenge the whole industry to adopt practices to reduce consumption of saturated fat, sugar and salt among other measures
• promote the flexibilities contained within planning regulations, so that local authorities are able to manage the proliferation of fast food outlets in particular areas, e.g. near parks or schools
• ask Ofcom to bring forward its review of restrictions on the advertising of unhealthy foods to children, to begin in July and report early findings as soon as possible

Building physical activity into our lives.

• invest in a ‘Walking into Health’ campaign, aiming to get a third of England walking at least 1,000 more steps daily by 2012 – an extra 15 billion steps a day
• invest £30 million in ‘Healthy Towns’ – working with selected towns and cities to build on the successful EPODE model used in Europe
• set up a working group with the entertainment technology industry to ensure that they continue to develop tools to allow parents to manage the time that their children spend playing sedentary games, online
• review our overall approach to physical activity, including the role of Sport England, to develop a fresh set of programmes ensuring that there is a clear legacy of increased physical activity leading up to and after the 2012 Games. 

Creating incentives for better health

• work with employers and employer organisations to develop pilots exploring how companies can best promote wellness among their staff and make healthy workplaces part of their core business model
• pilot and evaluate a range of different approaches to using personal financial incentives to encourage healthy living.

Personalised advice and support

• seek to develop the NHS Choices website to give highly personalised advice to all on their diet and activity levels, with clear and consistent information on how to maintain a healthy weight
• support the commissioning of more weight management services, by providing extra funding for this over the next three years. 
  

• Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: A Cross-Government Strategy for England