Social Research ¦ Market Research ¦ Behavioural Insight ¦ Evaluation ¦ SROI
Social Research ¦ Market Research ¦ Behavioural Insight ¦ Evaluation ¦ SROI
Cardiff and Vale Local Public Health team are facilitating delivery of the Move More, Eat Well partnership plan which provides a regional response across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan to encourage people to be more active and have a healthier diet. The aims of this research were to engage with and gather deep stories from the adult population across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan to understand the challenges and enablers relating to eating well, maintaining a healthy weight and being physically active.
To qualify to take part in the study, participants must be living in the area, have a lower income level (earn less than £30,000) and be an ‘unhealthy’ weight (BMI overweight / obese) and looking to lose weight. In addition, all were parents of either primary school or secondary school children. This demonstrates our ability to both recruit hard to reach audiences – including in Wales – and also to discuss sensitive subject matter – e.g. even before taking part, participants had to supply height and weight figures to confirm their BMI. Weight and attitudes to weight, activity and diet were a key part of study.
In total 16 people participated in an online community. Participants were set questions and tasks over the course of the week that asked them about meal planning, eating healthy and keeping active. They were encouraged to upload photos and videos to bring their experiences to life. Many of the photos were included in the report.
The research provided a window into people’s lives and revealed the everyday challenges and difficulties people are facing in Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan. Many are adjusting to life beyond the pandemic and Covid has had a profound impact in a myriad of ways including recent separation, divorce, bereavement, increased weight gain, lower levels of activity (gym memberships cancelled, classes stopped).
As a result many of the people we spoke to are feeling low, depressed and lacking self esteem.
While many can put boundaries in place for their children, its clear they struggle to adopt these for themselves.
Food is undoubtedly being used as a tool for comfort. There are significant amounts of daytime and night-time snacking, big portions, big side extras and convenience foods being consumed throughout the week.
Among those at an unhealthy weight, there is a strongly held belief that the only route to achieve weight loss is through a structured / formalised diet plan. At this point, many did not feel they were in the right mindset to address their weight or get more active, past experience has shown them that it requires commitment and a period of significant restriction and many felt ‘too big’ to get going, especially in terms of physical activity. The task feels overwhelming and exercise in public embarrassing.
It is therefore important to show this community, that eating well and moving more can be achieved in smaller steps, through establishing good long-term habits in order build self-esteem and self-motivation – this leans on the behavioural approach known as chunking. Our recommendations also utilised behavioural science approaches such as re-framing (e.g. re-framing common tasks such as shopping or walking to school as positive exercise to build self-esteem and positive habits) and social norming (e.g. showing others doing activities).
