Currently in Wales more than half of the adult population experience overweight or obesity, being overweight is now normal. There are already signs that unless we can change this, the situation will get much worse as 26.9% of children already experience overweight or obesity by the time they start school.
The rise in levels of overweight and obesity is complex and is the result of a number of rapid changes in our lives and lifestyles over the 20th century. We are less likely to work in manual jobs; we travel by car and have a number of labour-saving devices that mean we use less energy than before. At the same time, we have seen a massive expansion in food technology which has prioritised lower cost mass produced food which is energy dense containing lots of sugar and salt. We grow and prepare far less of our meals at home and busy lives have meant that we often choose quick meals that are ready prepared or cooked by others.
The complexity of the problem means that there are no simple solutions and no one agency or organisation can solve it alone. In addition, there has been growing recognition that there are complex inter-relationships between different aspects in a system that is constantly adapting and changing.
The Foresight Report Tackling Obesities Future Choices drew attention globally to the need to take a whole systems approach to the problem of unhealthy weight.
The Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales Whole Systems Approach (HWHW WSA) programme is funded by Welsh Government to ‘enable delivery of a national programme for Healthy Weight System Based Approaches’.
jamjar was commissioned to work with the HWHW WSA team to develop a suite of assets to communicate the benefits of taking a whole systems approach to make positive change.
