02 Dec 2024 Guest blog: Barnsley Council’s journey to adopting the Healthy Weight Declaration
In our latest blog, we hear from Laura Fairbank, Senior Public Health Officer at Barnsley Council, to discuss the adoption of the Healthy Weight Declaration locally.
Barnsley’s vision, outlined in our 2022-2025 Food Plan, is for nutritious food to be accessible to everyone and for our environment to be a place where healthy choices are the easiest choices. The Healthy Weight Declaration has provided Barnsley Council with a framework to further build on the 3 key strands highlighted within our Food Plan: Food access, Education and the Food Environment. Adopting the declaration has provided us with a longer-term vision and enabled Public Health to gain the support of other directorates in the Council in contributing to this agenda where they can.
Throughout 2024, the Healthy Weight Declaration has been through all directorates in the Council and our democratic process. It was signed off by our Senior Management Team and Purple Cabinet on the 18th September 2024. A Council healthy weight steering group has been created to drive forward the commitments and related actions. This group will monitor and evaluate any progress towards the commitments. A spreadsheet has been created to keep track of actions against each commitment and to collect any outcomes. To evaluate the impact of the actions we will be using local data and any qualitative information from our staff and residents. The Declaration and long-term vision will also be incorporated into our upcoming Public Health Strategy. To start the process, we established a self-assessment spreadsheet to RAG rate and measure our current picture against the 16 commitments. This highlights progress so far and the actions we need to focus on over the coming months.
Following this process, the first commitment we decided to focus on was around investing in the health literacy of local citizens in order to make informed healthier choices. From local qualitative evidence, it was highlighted that this was a gap across the borough. In partnership with our Healthier Communities team who carry out actions focused on improving food access, we have launched a food education campaign. ‘What’s for Tea Barnsley?’ is centred around empowering residents to cook healthy and low-cost meals and building a sense of community around sharing knowledge and skills. It consists of a time limited competition, asking residents to submit recipes. From this, a community cookbook will be created and distributed across the borough alongside a calendar of free cooking demonstrations in each Ward.
The next stage of our process will be to work closely with other directorates in the Council on specific commitments around the commercial determinants of health and wider planning. It is really important that actions are wider than health and we work towards a Whole Systems approach within the organisation. Next actions will be continuing to work on our policies including Barnsley High Fat, Salt and Sugar Policy and Hot Food Takeaway Supplementary Planning Document.
Advice for other Local Authorities looking to commit to the Healthy Weight Declaration would be to:
- Build in time to gain senior support for the Declaration
- Ensure that any system wide change includes strong links with physical activity teams
- Use momentum to add value to strategic priorities such as Inclusive Economy and Commercial Determinants
For further information about the Healthy Weight Declaration, please visit: https://foodactive.org.uk/what-we-do/influence-policy/local-authority-declaration-on-healthy-weight/
