Impact Review 2024-25: Healthy Weight HIT

Community events and outreach

Thanks to connections with Breathing Fire (Black Women’s Playback Theatre Company) and Sirona Health Links, the Healthy Weight HIT has been attending local events to talk with different community groups about healthy weight. These events have helped reach people who are often left out of health conversations. Many attendees were interested in culturally relevant information about healthy eating and wanted to check their height and weight to calculate their BMI.

Working together on healthy weight and language

Bristol Health Partners and King’s Health Partners (South London) have held initial meetings to share interests, insights and information about programmes within their respective local area in relation to healthy weight. They aim to work collaboratively on a future grant application, though the project area is still being defined.

The Healthy Weight HIT has applied for Research Capability Funding to support developmental work for future research projects, in relation to how weight is communicated, what awareness and understanding there is of ethnicity-specific cut-points for overweight and obesity and how people from different ethnic backgrounds would like to be supported to reach a healthier weight.

Supporting refugees’ health

The Healthy Weight and Active Lives HITs helped fund a Bristol Asylum Seekers and Refugee Partnership (BRASP) project, which offered physical activity opportunities for young refugees living in hotels in Bristol.

Funding enabled in 2024-25

The Healthy Weight HIT helped secure £1,600,000 in 2024-25 for projects to generate research evidence, improve outcomes and address health inequalities.