Achieve a healthy weight

Read the Havering Healthy Weight Strategy 2024-2029: Everybody’s Business

Weight is a complex issue.

We cannot solve it by telling people to move more and eat better.

As well as our individual biology, genetics and personal choices, there are many more factors that affect our weight.

For example, how much money we have, where we live impacts how easy it is to access less healthy foods and be physically active, our culture and our family.

The impact of these changes in modern day living is a system of circumstances and factors that encourage us to eat more foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt and to be physically inactive, so that it has now become easier to become overweight or obese.

The scale and complexity of the problem means that the Council, the local NHS, and stakeholders must work together to change the system.

To do this the Council has adopted a whole systems approach to obesity to tackle all of the different factors in the system making it more difficult for people to maintain a healthy weight.

We want to take a different approach.

We want to stop blaming individuals and claiming the problem is simply lack of knowledge or willpower.

We will support people, value and accept them, and work hard to make their lives fairer.

The London Borough of Havering Council and its partners worked together to create a shared vision for a Healthy Weight Strategy.

Our vision

The vision for Havering is that within 20 years’ childhood obesity will have been eradicated, that the borough will have become a healthier place to live, work and play, and a place where communities have come together to make the healthier choice the easier choice.

Our objectives

1. We will embed a whole systems approach across Havering which will be the foundation for addressing healthy weight. This will enable the introduction of policies and practices that have an influence on healthy weight.
2. We will develop partnerships which lead to effective community engagement into addressing healthy weight.
3. We will develop communities in Havering which promote and provides access to healthy, nutritious and sustainable food for all; enabling a healthy diet to become the easier option.
4. We will provide leadership to further shape the borough as a place where rates of physical activity increase and residents enjoy the benefits that physical activity provides.
5. We will support healthy pregnancies and help families achieve the best start to life for their babies and young children. (pre-conception – 5 years old).
6. We will support children and young people (5 years old to 18 years old), along with their families to achieve a healthy weight.
7. There will be greater opportunity for adults to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, including information / support to lose excess weight and maintain a healthy weight (18 years old +).