Why Weight? Pledge for creating Healthier places Together

The Why Weight? Pledge has been developed by partners of Healthier Together Integrated Care System (ICS) as a commitment to creating environments where everyone in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire has the access and ability to eat well, feel well and be active.

Our ability to be healthy is largely to do with environmental factors such as access to healthy food, good education, green space, and financial stability. For example, living in areas with limited access to the conditions which support a healthy lifestyle can make it harder to maintain good health and increases the risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers.

What does the pledge achieve?

The Pledge sets out a vision for environments where everyone be healthy through addressing the wider determinants of healthy weight.

The pledge provides a framework for a whole-system approach to the creation of healthier places and seeks to reduce poor health and health inequalities linked to obesity. Our key focus is improving health in all communities, through:

  • connecting and collaborating with other partners,
  • communicating in a considerate manner with staff, patients and service users,
  • creating healthier places,
  • working alongside communities,
  • and continuing to develop and learn.

The 10 commitments set out in this Pledge are to be considered as a high-level set of principles that can be embodied by all health, local authority, and voluntary and community sector partner organisations in our area. Signing up to the Pledge means endorsing these commitments. It is also intended to drive action, with signatory organisations taking different actions across the system depending on their resources, capacity and local priorities.

How does the Why Weight? Pledge support other Healthier Together activity?

The Why Weight? Pledge supports action to deliver on the five opportunities identified within our Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICS System Strategy:

  • Tackle inequalities
  • Strengthen the building blocks of good health and wellbeing
  • Prevent illness and treat people earlier
  • Work alongside communities to support healthy behaviours
  • Manage conditions better once people are ill

The Pledge

Why Weight? Pledge for Creating Healthier places together

As a signatory organisation we commit to implement the Pledge as part of a systems-wide approach to building a healthy weight environment;

We acknowledge that:

  • There is a need for a sensitive, multi-faceted approach that encompasses all of the wider social, environmental and economic factors that have a big impact on health.
  • Living with obesity is often stigmatised due to oversimplified views that place the responsibility solely on individuals, ignoring the wider factors that shape our lives and impact on health.
  • We need to challenge ideas that obesity is solely due to unhealthy eating and inactivity. The causes of obesity are complex and multifaceted, involving a range of factors that cannot be addressed through a single intervention.
  • We need to engage children, young people, and their families, adults and older adults and recognise that supportive environments are needed for healthy development.
  • People living in our most deprived areas have less access to the conditions needed to lead a healthy life, with minoritised ethnic groups disproportionately affected. This drives higher rates of obesity and widens health inequalities, so we will prioritise work that addresses these disparities.

We commit to:

Connecting and collaborating

1. Ensure there is strategic leadership to drive the commitments across organisations, identify connections, and integrate actions with other programmes and strategies.

2. Involve workplaces, social enterprises and other organisations in the implementation of action to create an environment where everyone has the access and ability to eat well, feel well and be active.
Considerate communication

3. Recognise and take action to reduce the negative impact of weight stigma on both physical and mental health.

4. Support and champion workforce development by enhancing staff knowledge of the links between weight and health, weight stigma, and trauma-informed approaches, including appropriate communication.

5. Clearly communicate how small changes in improving nutrition and moving more can have significant health gains and a positive impact on physical and mental health and wellbeing.
Creating healthier places

6. Support and improve the food and drink environments under our control or influence, ensuring food and drink available is healthy, affordable and sustainable.

7. Take action to create environments that support and enable people to move more and be more active.
Community led

8. Engage and support communities to improve access to nutritious, affordable and culturally appropriate food.

9. Involve local communities in designing and implementing programmes that create environments to support good health.
Continue to learn

10. Adopt an outcomes-focused approach by agreeing on metrics that are meaningful to our organisations and the people we serve. Monitor and evaluate work, sharing successes and challenges to foster learning and spread best practices throughout the system.

What can you do?

S'il te plaît entrer en contact if you have any questions or would like to discuss signing up to the Why Weight? Pledge community of practice.

Whilst the Why Weight? Pledge has been developed for key organisations within the local health and care system, we welcome additional organisations to add their signature and consider how they can take action to meet the Pledge commitments.

If you’re interested in signing but are not part of the Healthier Together partnership, please contact us via email at publichealthsouthgloucestershire@southglos.gov.uk and we can provide you with further information and guidance.

Once the Pledge has been endorsed and signed internally, a digital record of this can be added below.

The information you give in this digital record will be stored by the Public Health teams working to deliver the Why Weight Pledge. It will not be published on this website unless consent is sought first.

We have also developed an e-learning module which introduces some of the concepts that have informed the Why Weight? Pledge, and can be freely accessed via OpenLearn.

Complete the Why Weight? Changing the Narrative Around Living with Obesity e-learning module

This e-learning is open to all and offers a comprehensive introduction to the complex factors that influence weight and overall health. To access the course, you will first need to create an account on the South Gloucestershire Council Learning and Development Hub.

Evaluation

Implementation of the Why Weight? Pledge over the first 18-months is being evaluated by a collaboration involving University of Bristol, North Somerset Council, Leeds Beckett University, Birmingham University and Caafi Health.

The research has been funded by the NIHR Three Research Schools Prevention Research Programme, a unique collaboration between the NIHR Schools for Primary Care Research, Public Health Research and Social Care Research to collaborate on a programme of work funded through the National Institute of Health Research.

The evaluation will examine:

  • The plans and actions and how these change over time
  • Whether and how the Pledge contributes to changes within and across organisations
  • Leaders’ and staff views about weight and weight stigma
  • The time taken to plan and implement actions
  • What members of the public involved in shaping actions think about their experience, plans, actions and next steps.

Further details can be found on the Three Schools Prevention Programme website or by contacting the research team at: grp-whyweightproject@groups.bristol.ac.uk.

Sign the Pledge

As it stands, the Pledge is to be signed by the Healthier Together Partner organisations across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire by 1 September 2025.

We are also engaging with wider partners to promote the Pledge as a mechanism for improving health across our whole system, and welcome additional organisations to add their signature and consider how they can take action to meet the Pledge commitments.

If you’re interested in signing but are not part of the Healthier Together partnership, please contact us via email at publichealthsouthgloucestershire@southglos.gov.uk and we can provide you with further information and guidance.

Once the Pledge has been endorsed and signed internally, a digital record of this should be added below.

The information you give in this digital record will be stored by the Public Health teams working to deliver the Why Weight Pledge. It will not be published on this website unless consent is sought first.

Why Weight? Pledge for creating Healthier places Together
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Please list three key actions you will be taking forward within your organisation/strategic group and/or board. These actions might describe work that you are already doing which you are committing to continue, or that you are looking to develop over the 12 months from 1 September 2025. Actions may vary across different parts of the system, depending on resource, capacity and how far along you are in your journey

Pledge learning network

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