Change4Life: Health Promotion Campaign Analysis - Term Paper Example

“Change4Life”: Health Promotion Campaign Analysis Introduction Busy scheduled modern life coupled with significant changes in food culture has intensified diseases like obesity, blood pressure, and cholesterol. Obesity is growing to be a major chronic health problem in the United Kingdom. In order to deal with the causes of obesity, the Department of Health implemented public health promotion programme called Change4Life in the country. It is a comprehensive social marketing campaign aimed at controlling obesity in the UK society, and it has achieved its stated targets over the last years. This paper will critically evaluate the Change4Life health promotion campaign designed and implemented by the Department of Health. Change4life ‘Change4life’ is a public health programme implemented in England in January 2009 by the Department of Health. Change4life is the nation’s first national level social marketing campaign aimed at tackling the causes of obesity, which is a life threatening health problem caused by a sedimentary lifestyle. This health promotion campaign intends to assist families and middle aged adults to achieve significant and sustainable improvements in their diet, physical activities, and alcohol consumption. ‘Eat well, move more, live longer’ is the slogan used to promote this social marketing campaign. Mainly the Change4life campaign encourages individuals to adopt six healthy habits such as 5 A Day, watch the salt, cut back fat, sugar swaps, choose less booze, and get going every day. The 5 A Day campaign, which was introduced by the UK Department of Health in 2002-03, suggests ways to consume the recommended five portions of fruits and vegetables each day. The ‘watch the salt’ programme gives advices to reduce the amount of salt consumed by an individual each day and it recommends people to restrict the salt intake to below 6g (for adults). Moreover, the ‘cut back fat’ plan provides information about the level of fat contained in different foods and suggests ways to limit excessive intake of fat whereas the ‘sugar swaps’ policy is about including healthier levels of sugar in the daily food pattern. The ‘choose less booze’ programme gives particular suggestions to cut down alcohol consumption in accordance with the government’s lower-risk guidelines. Finally, the ‘get going every day’ plan explains people why it is essential to lead an active lifestyle and how it is possible for adults and children to accomplish it cheaply and easily. The Change4life campaign has six sub-brands including Bike4Life, Breakfast4Life, Let’s Dance with Change4Life, Play4Life, Swim4Life, and Walk4Life so as to assist its intermediaries to promote health through a food or an activity focus. The Change4life health promotion campaign adopts a comprehensive marketing approach and employs various marketing channels like radio, television, social media, public relations, and direct marketing. In order to pass the message of this campaign to public, this public health programme uses animated television ads designed by the Aardman Animations. The Change4life has formed partnership with leading food and beverage companies like Asda and Kellogg’s and non-governmental organisations like British Heart Foundation. This public health campaign closely works with intermediaries at local level, including schools, local authorities, and NHS organisation in addition to dealing with consumer marketing. This strategy greatly assists the Change4life to obtain local supporters who are able to effectively interact with campaign beneficiaries in different ways. For this, these local supporters are provided with free resources like posters and leaflets. In 2011, Change4life designed a programme named Change4Life Sports Club so as to encourage physical activities among less active children in primary and secondary schools. For this, multi-sport themes are used in primary schools whereas alternative school sports are promoted in secondary schools. The inspiration of the Olympic Games is effectively used to grow a habit of regular participation among children. The Change4Life Sports Clubs specifically try to respond to what children really want and to develop a sense belonging in children. Another objective of this programme is to change children’s behaviours like eating and physical activities linked to key health outcomes. Star4Life is another subsidiary division of Change4life and this programme is particularly aimed at the health promotion of pregnant women and new mothers. Star4Life promotes a healthy lifestyle habits during pregnancy and ensures a healthy start for newborns. For this, the programme encourages practices like healthy eating, taking nutrition foods, quitting smoking and alcohol consumption, avoiding sugary foods, and breastfeeding during pregnancy and after delivery. Advantages and disadvantages The major advantage of the Change4life social marketing campaign is that it avoids hectoring people about their weight. Most of the people have poor food knowledge and culture and this situation increases people’s vulnerability to life threatening health problem like obesity (Burchi, et al, 2011). In addition, the Change4life programme greatly assists its audience to develop an improved food culture and avoid excessive accumulation of fat in the body. Since this public health campaign operates at the school level, it is a good movement for encouraging the new generation to follow a healthy food culture from childhood. A poor food culture together with sedimentary lifestyle contributes not only to obesity but also to other chronic diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, and cholesterol (Wakefield, 2004). Change4life advocates claim that this health promotion programme can play a vital role in improving the emotional health of individuals because a healthy body is essential to maintain a healthy mind. However, one of the notable disadvantages of the Change4life is that it fails to address the needs of individuals who have already developed obesity. Moreover, this programme does not have proper systems to manage the health condition of obese people or to bring them back to a normal life. In addition, the high cost of care is another significant disadvantage of this social marketing campaign. According to a report, “consumers would need to spend more than double the amount they would get back in discounts under the government’s anti-obesity drive” (Smithers, 2011). Critical appraisal Obesity is a chronic disease caused by the excessive accumulation of body fat, and this medical condition eventually leads to a significant health impairment. According to the Harvard School of Public Health (n.d.), adults with a body max index (BMI) between 25.0 and 29.9 are overweight whereas obese adults will have a BMI of 30 or higher. Gostin (2007) also points out that today obesity in adults and children is alarmingly increasing due to adverse changes in lifestyle and food culture. The relationship between energy consumption and energy expenditure is a key determinant of the body fat level. When an individual consumes more calories than what he actually needs, he has greater chances of developing obesity (Harvard School, “obesity prevention source”). The growing food trends like ‘eating out’ coupled with a sedimentary lifestyle double the risk of developing this chronic medical condition in modern people (Campos, 2006). At this juncture, the Change4Life social marketing campaign is relevant to curb the incidence of this disease among UK people. While analysing the Change4Life health promotion programme closely, it seems that the behaviour change model was followed for the dissemination of this health campaign. Since the causes of obesity relate to people’s lifestyle behaviors to a great extent, this model would curb the prevalence of this chronic medical condition in the UK society. There are six stages in the change process of the behaviour change model. Pre-contemplation stage is the first stage in the change process, and it is the stage where the individual does not consider the change (Petire & Guzys, 2013, p. 146). The first stage is followed by the contemplative stage, when the individual is really ambivalent about the change proposed; and the third stage is the preparation stage, when the individual begins to plan for and adapt to the change (Ibid). Successful completion of these stages leads the individual to the action stage where the individual takes necessary steps required to achieve the change. The 5 A Day programme included in the Change4life health promotion campaign can promote the health status of people considering the World Health Organisation’s recommendation that individuals should consume at least 400g of vegetables a day. Although 5 A Day programme was introduced 10 years ago, studies indicate that still few people adhere to its recommendations (Christian et al, 2013) . Therefore the Department of Health must design an improved mechanism to ensure that people strictly comply with the suggestions of the programme. Similarly, the watch the salt programme recommended by the Change4Life campaign is really helpful for individuals because the excess level of salt in the body can increase the blood pressure, which in turn will increase the chances of heart diseases and stroke. Most of the people are not aware of the hidden salt content in daily foods, and they misbelieve that they consume only a little salt a day. In fact, almost all food items including bread, breakfast cereals, meals, sauces, and pizza contain some percent of salt even though they do not taste salty. Kleinewietfeld et al (2013) point out that people consume more amount of salt than what they actually need, and therefore they are vulnerable to cardiovascular diseases. In this situation, a programme like ‘watch the salt’ would significantly benefit the UK society. As authors like Gills et al (2009) point out, excessive body fat can create a range of health issues like cholesterol, heart attack, and other heart diseases. Most of the daily eaten foods like butter, cheese, cakes, pastries, and biscuits contain high level of saturated fat. Although people know that these high fat content foods would cause serious health issues, they are not willing to stop enjoying the foods they love. Here, awareness programs or similar tactics may not be really beneficial to regulate people’s food pattern. In contrast, ‘cut back fat’ programme under the Change4Life social marketing campaign suggests people some potential ways to control their body fat without abandoning their favourite foods. Like in the case of salt, people eat increased amount of sugar a day without actually intending it. Many of the foods contain more amount of sugar than what people think. Sugary foods constitute a rich source of energy and the body stores the excess energy from those food items as fat. Increased level of sugar in the body is the major cause leading to diabetes mellitus, a chronic disease affecting the normal life of victims (Drago et al, 2008). Dentists warn that eating too much sugar can lead to tooth problems The ‘choose less booze’ programme promoted by the Change4Life campaign is a potential way to regulate alcohol consumption. Majority of the drinkers do not bother how much they are drinking. The ‘choose the less booze’ programme assists people to check their alcohol consumption level using the drinks checker (Change4Life). This facility may influence frequent drinkers to cut down the amount of alcohol they consume a day. This programme also describes the hidden harms of alcohol and how it relates to chronic health issues like obesity. This health promotion campaign is more feasible as compared to others because it does not force people to stop drinking completely but it suggests people the unit of alcohol they can drink without harming their health much. In order to avoid such a bad situation, the Change4Life has introduced a ‘get going’ programme that encourages people to be active every day through some interesting games and physical activities. In the view of Adams et al (2012), the Change4Life health promotion campaign encourages people to change their lifestyle and to maintain the change achieved. However, some aspects of this social marketing campaign limit its scope. To illustrate, the Change4Life campaign has corporate partnerships with companies like Nestle, PepsiCo, and Mars, which are the leading manufacturers of fatty and sugary products (Watts, 2009). Although the government claims that these partnerships are helpful to ensure the involvement of everyone to fight obesity, it is contradictory to make health campaign partnerships with companies whose products are harmful to health. These food corporate giants still target children with promotion of unhealthy food. They use promotion techniques like TV advertising, football sponsoring, and interactive technology to influence people, and their junk food has become a ubiquitous part of the UK culture. There is no wonder if this social marketing campaign fails to influence people better than what the well organised efforts of a food industry in the country achieves. In order to tackle the actual causes of obesity, it is essential for the government to regulate the marketing and distribution of fatty/sugary foods. However, it might be a troublesome task for the government to put restrictions on companies like Nestle and Mars who are participating in a health promotion campaign. It is necessary to evaluate how effective the Change4Life social marketing campaign is in achieving its stated objectives. In the first year (2010), this health promotion campaign particularly paid particular attention to families with children aged between 5 and 11who are at greatest risk of developing obesity (Change4Life marketing strategy, n.d.). In the following years, the scope of the programme was expanded to other groups at risk. It is interesting to see that the Change4Life health promotion plan has achieved all of its first year targets. This programme has reached almost 99% of the targeted families in the first year and 413,466 families joined this social marketing campaign in the first 12 months (consumerfocus.org.uk. n.d.). At the end of the first year, there were 44,833 families who were likely to be join the Change4Life soon. In addition, it received over 1.9 million responses including face to face, postal, telephone, and online in the year 2010 (Ibid). In addition, it is identified that the Change4Life Sport Clubs which are run by the Youth Sport Trust has been successful as they have a continued positive impact on the lives of young people (Ibid). According to a statistical report, over 225,000 children joined the clubs since its formation in 2011 (Youth Sport Trust, n.d.). The Change4Life health promotion campaign could be improved if it has been specifically designed for delivering long term behavioural change. Although this programme’s features like ‘get going’ encourage its audience to be active every day, they are not potential enough to sustain the behavioural change achieved. Referring to expert views, the government’s £75 campaign will cause the loss of time and money unless it develops a strategy to change the lifestyle behaviour of individuals in the long term (marketingweek.co.uk, 2009). It is recommendable for the government to conduct a critical evaluation of the campaign’s last three-year operations to identify what aspects need to be sustained so as to enhance the long term behavioural change. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that the Change4Life social marketing campaign has been performing successfully. This health promotion campaign particularly focuses on six healthy habits such as 5 A Day, watch the salt, cut back fat, sugar swaps, choose less booze, and get going every day. In addition, it has a number of sub-brands including Bike4Life, Breakfast4Life, Let’s Dance with Change4Life, Play4Life, Swim4Life, and Walk4Life. The Change4Life can effectively address the issue of obesity by developing a healthy food culture and daily physical activities. One of the notable features of this programme is that it operates at school level to create an awareness of obesity among its audience from their childhood. This campaign maintains a well developed but user-friendly website to provide the audience with many useful tips on health. The facilities like drinks checker assist people to be more cautious about their health manintenance. The major weakness of this campaign is that it fails to address the needs of individuals who are obese already. The Department of Health adopted the behaviour change model for the dissemination of this health promotion campaign. The bahviour change model is a six-stage approach which encourages gradual changes in behaviour to facilitate the abolition of an unwanted behaviour. This model would be extremely suitable for the implementation of of Change4Life campaign effectively because some healthy behaviour changes are needed to achieve the aims of this social programme. The Change4Life’s corporate partnerships with companies like Nestle, PepsiCo, and Mars are likely to limit the feasibility of this programme because those companies are leading manufacturers of fatty/sugary foods. Due to this partnership, the government cannot effectively impose operational restrictions on these corporate giants. However, some recent evaluation reports indicate that the campaign has been successful in achieving its targeted outcomes since its launch. This social marketing campaign could be notably improved if there were strategies to achieve the behavioural change in the long term. References Adams, J. et al. 2012. “The Change4Life Convenience Store Programme to Increase Retail Access to Fresh Fruit and Vegetables: A Mixed Methods Process Evaluation”. PLoS ONE 7(6): e39431. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0039431 Burchi, F. et al. 2011. “The role of food and nutrition system approaches in tackling hidden hunger”. 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