Lifestyle matters
- Small changes in our lifestyles can make big differences to our health.
- This year the BHF distributed over 160,000 of our booklet, Food should be fun... and healthy!
- The BHF received more than 13,000 orders for booklet, So you want to lose weight... for good.
Lifestyle matters
With heart and circulatory disease as the number one killer, giving people help and information on how to live a healthier life and protect their hearts is a major priority for the British Heart Foundation.
Action
In addition to the BHF’s established portfolio of high quality and accessible lifestyle publications and resources, three projects stand out for particular mention in 2005/06:
We recently launched Kids Fit Squad, a new TV series designed to get children off the couch and up and running. Top chef Steve Walpole and fitness guru Jane Wake took on the challenge to help 10 children kick the junk food habit and lead healthier and more active lives. The series followed their progress, showing the difference the new diet and fitness regime made to their heath and giving hints and tips to both parents and children on how to cut the fat and get fit.
While Kids Fit Squad targeted children and their parents, the new Think Fit! workplace pack, sponsored by Legal and General, was aimed at raising awareness of the benefits of physical activity for grown-ups and helping people make it part of their working day. The pack includes a guide to developing a workplace activity programme and tips on healthy living, and it links to a new website where workplace champions can compete against colleagues in the ‘Office Olympics’ games.
Our free Heart Health magazine celebrated its first birthday in 2005. We made many changes and improvements including more letters and real-life stories from readers, tempting new healthy recipes and a greater emphasis on ethnic diversity to reflect the profile of heart patients. Sign up to our free Heart Health magazine by calling 0870 600 6566.
Impact
BHF publications and communications continue to prove very popular, with the workplace health theme of Think Fit! being a particular highlight this year.
In 2005/06 1,234 Think Fit! packs were ordered and, in January, the microsite accounted for 60% of total visits to bhf.org.uk, with nearly one and half million visitors in 2005/06. The ‘Office Olympics’ game was played over five million times, keeping it in the top five of a worldwide chart for ‘viral games’ – ones that people e-mail to each other – for several months.
“I found the BHF Think Fit website really useful when developing a health programme within my workplace. The website gave me lots of ideas for activities that I could adapt, to encourage my work colleagues to be more active. One particularly successful challenge involved teams of colleagues competing against each other to build up the most 'activity points'. Was it my imagination or did I notice a few extra trips to the photocopier that week?"
Philippa Evans, Active Surrey Sports Partnership
Heart Health continued to grow in popularity, increasing its circulation from 24,000 to over 29,000 and Kids Fit Squad attracted 350,000 viewers during the 10-episode series.
Next steps
Awareness of heart health issues is vital for all of us and the BHF will continue to provide new and innovative publications and programmes to help the nation’s hearts keep beating.
Kids Fit Squad will continue its run on the Discovery Home and Health channel until 2008 and we will be publishing the results of independent research into how effective the series has been in raising awareness of health issues and its impact on viewers’ lifestyles.
The Think Fit! workplace pack will be promoted through 12 seminars across the UK in 2006 and at least 3,000 will be sent out to new participants in the public, private, voluntary and community sectors. An independent evaluation of the pack will be carried out during 2006/07.
With promotional activity scheduled to begin in summer 2006, we aim to double the circulation of Heart Health magazine by March 2007.