Hannah C
P8: Explain the features of a selected health promotion campaign and the approaches used to
increase public awareness
Every campaign will have objectives that relate to the topic that they want to spread awareness on,
and educate the public on how to improve and maintain their health. (PublicHealthEngland, 2020)
outline the Better Health Adult Obesity campaigns objectives. They say that the campaign is to ‘help
provide the nation with the resources to take the first steps towards making positive, healthier
choices in 2021.’ They also say that another one of the campaigns objectives is to have positive and
motivating messages to support individuals into taking action. In addition, the campaigns target
audience is primarily directed at adults. (GovUK, 2021) say that the campaign was launched ‘to
encourage adults across the nation to lose excess weight, eat more healthily and get active’. They
may have focused on directing the campaign at adults because research found that adults aged 35-
65 who had gained weight, had risen to over 10lbs (4.6kg). In addition, the research also concluded
that 49% of the adults who participated in the study said they would like to have a healthier diet. As
a result, this highlights who the campaign was directed at and why, due to the statistics showing that
it was adults who wanted to have a healthier lifestyle. Campaigns need to take into account how
people communicate and therefore the approaches they should consider to do this for their target
audience. Campaigns can partake in multiple media platforms in order to promote their campaign.
For example, the Better Health Campaign was said to appear across TV, digital channels, radio, pubic
billboards and social media. As a consequence of this, it showed that in order to have maximum
impact, the campaign was put onto the majority of platforms, thus meaning that if an individual
doesn’t have access to one platform, then they could have seen or read about it in a different one.
Having adults as the target audience can also spread awareness to children as it it usually parents
who can influence a child’s lifestyle, and therefore their health. For example, a lot of children may
adopt their parents habits or behaviours. As a consequence, if a child observes their parent eating
healthy and exercising, they are probably more likely to imitate their behaviour. Furthermore, Public
Health England also recommend the Better Health Campaign to use a community development
approaching. For example, they asked community pharmacy teams and GP’s to support the
campaign by having leaflets and posters. By doing this, it shows that an individuals local healthcare
community is involved and encouraging the campaign, thus helping to make it appeal to the
audience. Furthermore, having it in healthcare places where ill people are or people seeking help,
may also mean the campaign could appeal to them as well as it offers steps to improve their health.
We also see from the picture of the poster attached that
they’ve included pictures of ‘average’ people and not the
‘perfect body’ image. This social marketing approach is
beneficial as it means that people can see similarities to that
person and have the mentality of ‘if they can do it so can I’.
This relates to the marketing mix approach which is to offer
the consumer something rather than trying to sell them the
idea. In the Better Health campaign, it does this by
demonstrating how the campaign has worked for others, thus showing the audience what the
campaign could offer them. The marketing mix can help the process of social marketing to ensure
that people are aware of what is being offered and that they’re accessible and achievable. Before
any campaign is undertaken, they must consider ethical questions about the implications on the
target population. The Better Health campaign would have had to of considered the resources that
are available to parts of society. For example, poorer areas would be less likely to afford healthy
foods which the campaign would promote. As a result of this, the campaign would have to offer
solutions, such as supermarket brands, for this so that the campaign can appeal to and be applicable
to everyone. This would also relate to an individuals food requirements in regard to their religious
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beliefs, their allergies or personal preferences such as being a vegetarian. These ethical
considerations must all be taken into account in order to maintain their message, encourage
participation to all and reduce backlash or challenges.
P5: Explain how approaches to health promotion and protection have been applied in a selected
health campaign
P6: Explain how approaches to prevention and control have been applied in a selected campaign
In July 2020, the Uk Government launched the ‘Better Health’ national campaign. Its purpose was to
encourage people to make healthier lifestyle choices by getting active, losing weight, quitting
smoking and drinking less. It used evidence based responses through environmental surveillance and
intelligence gathering which showed that obese people are more likely to become seriously ill or
have a higher chance of being admitted to intensive care with COVID-19 compared to people with
healthy BMIs. Due to this, they created health surveillance programmes within the campaign such as
mobile apps to track their weight loss, a BMI calculator, NHS smoke free and online support groups.
This demonstrates how the campaign was applied as it provided information with easy access to
individuals which meant they could make healthier choices and learn new skills through apps and
tools such as a Food Scanner and Easy Meals. In addition, this relates to targeting education and
health awareness as these meant that individuals could learn and become educated through this
campaign. Furthermore, (GovUK, 2020) said that alongside mass nationwide promotion, the Better
Health campaign would specifically target groups and areas which are most affected by obesity, and
that there’s evidence showing that ‘Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities are
disproportionately affected by obesity as well as COVID-19’. Therefore, this means that the
campaign has monitored the health status of communities and have identified those most at risk,
thus being able to target them in the campaign to enable them to also benefit from it.
Within the Lose Weight aspect of the campaign, it specifies the importance of weight loss on
preventing and controlling type 2 diabetes which is a non-communicable disease. The campaign
underpins the complications type 2 diabetes can have, such as sight loss, kidney failure, strokes or
heart attacks. They further state that the risk of developing it can be reduced by eating more
healthily, being more physically active and losing weight. Consequently, they provide a ‘Check your
risk score’ for type 2 diabetes. As a result, this shows that they recognise the importance of their
campaign in helping individuals in losing weight, to be able to prevent the risk of developing non-
communicable diseases, thus implementing ways and methods to be able to encourage individuals
to control, monitor and lose weight. Moreover, in order for the campaign to prevent and control
obesity, they provide socio-economic support by having partnerships with weight loss companies.
For example, GetSlim has become a partner of Public Health Englands Better Health Campaign, with
a standard monthly subscription plan and can reduce the rate to £4 a month for 3 months. As a
result, the campaign would claim that they benefit individuals socio-economically as they provide
offer codes for companies which specialise in weight loss. Consequently, the campaign can provide
cheaper options for people which allows them to receive support, track their food and exercise, have
flexible eating plans and access healthy recipes as part of a weight loss plan.
(Extended P5/6)
M4: Assess the success of approaches used to promote and protect health and prevent disease in
selected health promotion campaign
D2: Justify the approaches used to promote and protect health and prevent disease in a selected
health promotion campaign
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The Better Health campaign had used media as its main platform in promoting healthy eating and
used it as an approach to have a wide spread impact. This was to primarily focus on preventing and
controlling non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart conditions. By using media
and television, it meant that it could reach the campaigns target audience, whilst also potentially
reaching everyone else. For example, the campaign has plans to ban TV adverts for high in fat or
sugar food and drinks before 9pm, and have an advertising ban online for unhealthy foods. The
campaign would have seen a correlation between junk food marketing and obesity. By having this
linked established, the campaign would have used approaches to enable a positive policy
implementation in order to tackle this issue and protect health. While this policy is set to take place
in 2023, research has shown that it would be detrimental to everyone’s health. For example,
(ObesityHealthAlliance, 2020) have said that ‘Recent evidence from well-controlled studies’ had
shown that exposure to ‘food advertising does influence adults in terms of their desire to eat and
also what and how much they eat’. As a result, this highlights how influential media can be in
dictating an individuals lifestyle, and emphasises the importance of effective approaches in tackling
this issue, which the Better Health Campaign is designed to do. (ObesityHealthAlliance, 2020) also
support steps being taken in order to end all junk food marketing online as they argue it would
protect children and show the Government’s commitment in addressing obesity. While this
unhealthy food advert ban hasn’t been implemented yet, it’s predicted to be very successful and a
very effective approach in order to prevent obesity and the development of non-communicable
diseases. There was an approach similar to this in London where Sadiq Khan banned junk food
adverts on the tube. The results from this study ‘calculated that Londoners purchased around 385
fewer calories each week now than they would have if the ban was not introduced’ (E.Craig, 2022). A
population health expert, Professor Steven Cummins, said that the findings from this study ‘provide
further evidence for the effectiveness of advertising restrictions’. As a consequence of this, the
successfulness of the Better Health Campaigns advertising restrictions would appear to be very
influential in reducing obesity and therefore having an effective approach in preventing and
controlling non-communicable diseases. However, Boris Johnson is being urged by the advertising
industry to rethink the ‘onerous’ restrictions on adverts for unhealthy food. They claim that
advertisement restrictions will ‘do little to address the fundamental causes of childhood obesity’
(CityAM, 2019). They also state that it will have severe impacts on media revenue. I however believe
that tackling obesity is more of an importance than media revenue, and that if there are issues with
food advertisements, ad agencies should be promoting healthier food in order to keep the media
revenue and also show children and adults healthier alternatives.
Data collected through environmental surveillance and intelligence gathering has shown that ‘obese
people are significantly more likely to become seriously ill and be admitted to intensive care with
Covid-19 compared to those with a healthy BMI’ (PublicHealthEngland, 2020)). As a consequence,
the Better Health Campaign designed and used health surveillance programmes as an approach in
order to promote public health and wellbeing. Evidence used form previous programmes, such as
the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, suggests that some digital providers can perform as well
as face to face services. This therefore proves that the use of apps as health surveillance
programmes appears to be successful as it can help to reach younger cohort and offers increased
flexibility of access. (NHS, 2021) also state that due to the pandemic, there has been a 25% rise in
daily health app downloads, thus increasing from 4 to 5 million everyday. As a consequence, we see
that through research, the Better Health Campaign has chosen an approach suitable for the current
circumstances, and offers something that appeals to the publics digital health. The NHS Weight Loss
App implemented through the Better Health Campaign offers free 12-week digital support through
the apps and websites in order to help individuals manage their weight and improve longer term
health outcomes. This therefore highlights that the Better Health Campaign is helping to protect and
promote public health whilst also trying to prevent and control non-communicable diseases. They
have taken these into account when developing their objectives and have used approaches and
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